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GOLD-FOIL 



GOLD-FOIL 



HAMMERED FROM POPULAR PROVERBS 



BY 

TIMOTHY TITCOMB 

AUTHOR OF " LETTERS TO THE YOUNG *'' 



"Proverbs are the daughters of daily experience" — 

Dutch Proverb 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
743 and 745 Broadway 

1881 



&p 



Copyright by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER 

1859 



Copyright by 
J. G. HOLLAND 



Trow's 

Printing and Bookbinding Company 

201-213 East \ith Street 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



THE grass that grows upon the lawn elects and 
drinks from the juices of the earth the ele- 
ments that compose its structure ; but if the lawn 
be cropped year after year, and have no return of 
the materials removed, it will cease to thrive. A 
wise husbandry will spread upon its surface the 
results of the life that has been taken away, and 
these will furnish its most healthful nourishment. 
So the vital truths relating to the common life of 
man, are elected and drawn from soils containing 
innumerable ingredients that may not be assimi- 
lated. Many of these ingredients, good and bad, 
are furnished by the schools and by the profes- 
sional mind, and it may legitimately be the work 
of a layman to take the results of the life that has 
been lived — the truths that have been verified and 
vitalized by human experience — and give them 



vi Preface. 

again to the soil that has produced them. With 
the records of popular experience in my hand, as 
they are embodied in popular proverbs, I aim to 
do this work in this book. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Springfield, Mass., 1859. 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. 



WHEN the author wrote this book he was a 
member of the editorial staff of a daily 
newspaper. In this newspaper these brief essays 
appeared, one by one, until they grew to the 
measure of a volume. I suppose that a con- 
sideration of the necessities of the vehicle which 
first bore them to the public had much to do 
with determining their scope and length. Brief 
essays upon popular topics, relating to morals 
and society, were deemed desirable on one day of 
the week, and especially desirable for the weekly 
edition ; and thus a whole series of books of this 
character was produced, the " Letters to the 
Young " growing out of the same policy. 

Restriction in the matter of space, which would 
seem to militate against the competent treatment 
of important topics, has proved to be an element 



viii Preface. 

in the popularity of this volume. It has com- 
pelled condensation and permitted variety to 
such an extent that readers have been able to 
take it up in the spare minutes, or half hours, of 
busy lives, and easily absorb an essay at a sit- 
ting. So it has become a kind of daily com- 
panion for a multitude of earnest people, to 
whom, and to those who are like them, this new 
edition is heartily dedicated. 

New York, 1881. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 
An Exordial Essay i 

CHAPTER II. 
The Bible n 

CHAPTER III. 
Patience, 22 

CHAPTER IV. 
Perfect Liberty, 34 

CHAPTER V. 
Trust and What Comes of It, 46 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Ideal Christ, 57 

CHAPTER VII. 
Providence, 68 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Does Sensuality Pay? 80 



x Contents. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Way to Grow Old, 90 

CHAPTER X. 
Almsgiving, 100 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Love of What is Ours m 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Power of Circumstances 123 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Anvils and Hammers 135 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Every Man has his Place 147 

CHAPTER XV. 
Indolence and Industry, 158 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Sins of our Neighbors, 170 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Canonization of the Vicious 180 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Social Classification, 190 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Preservation of Character, 200 



Contents. xi 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XX. 
Vices of Imagination, 210 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Questions above Reason 220 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Public and Private Life, , 231 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Home, . . • 242 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Learning and Wisdom, . . . . . 253 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Receiving and Doing : . 264 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
The Secret of Popularity 276 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Lord's Business 287 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
The Great Mystery, .....#.. 323 



GOLD-FOIL. 



CHAPTER I. 

AN EXORDIAL ESSA Y. 

" Cold broth hot again, that loved I never ; 
Old love renewed again, that loved I ever." 

" Get thy spindle and thy distaff ready, and God will send thee flax." 

FOR the general public, I have written a preface, 
that the aims and character of my book may be 
comprehended at a glance, as it is lifted from the shelf 
of the bookseller ; but to those who read the book, 
I have something more that I wish to say by way of 
introduction. 

It is not for the brilliant brace of initial sermons that 
we still admire the man whom we love to call " our 
minister.' ' The old love must be renewed again, from 
Sabbath to Sabbath, from month to month, and from 
year to year, by new exhibitions of his power and new 
demonstrations of his faculty to feed the motives of a 



2 Gold- Foil. 

large and luxuriant life within our souls. If he fail in 
this — if his power flinch through laziness, or flag through 
languor — and he resort to the too common process of 
heating again the old broth, his productions will grow 
insipid, and our hungering natures will turn uneasily to 
other sources for refreshment. It is not for the fresh 
cheek, the full lip, the fair forehead, the parted sweeps 
of sunny hair, and the girlish charm of form and fea- 
tures, that we love the wives who have walked hand 
in hand with us for years, but for new graces, opening 
each morning like flowers in the parterre, their prede- 
cessors having accomplished their beautiful mission and 
gone to seed. Old love renewed again, through new 
motives to love, is certainly a thing lovely in itself, and 
desirable by all whose ambition and happiness it is to 
sit supreme in a single heart, or to hold an honorable 
place in the affections of the people. 

A few months ago, the pen that traced these lines 
commenced a series of letters to the young. The letters 
accumulated, and grew into a book ; and this book, with 
honest aims and modest pretensions, has a place to-day 
in many thousand homes, while it has been read by hun- 
dreds of thousands of men and women in every part of 
the country. More and better than this, it has become an 
inspiring, moving and directing power in a great aggre- 
gate of young life. I say this with that kind of gladness 
and gratitude which admits of little pride. I say it be- 
cause it has been said to me — revealed to me in letters 



An Exordial Essay. 3 

brimming with thankfulness and overflowing with friend- 
liness ; expressed to me in silent pressures of the hand — 
pressures so full of meaning that I involuntarily looked 
at my palm to see if a jewel had not been left in it ; ut- 
tered to me by eyes full of interest and pleasure ; told 
to me in plain and homely words in the presence of tears 
that came unbidden. To say that all this makes me 
happy, would not be to say all that I feel. I account 
the honor of occupying a pure place in the popular 
heart — of being welcomed in God's name into the affec- 
tionate confidence of those for whom life has high mean- 
ings and high issues — of being recognized as among the 
beneficent forces of society — the greatest honor to be 
worked for and won under the stars. So much for that 
which is past, and that which is. 

And now, I would have the old love renewed. I 
would come to the hearts to which the letters have given 
me access with another gift — with food for appetites 
quickened and natures craving further inspiration. I 
would bring new thoughts to be incorporated into indi- 
vidual and social life, which shall strengthen their vital 
processes, and add to their growth. I would continue 
and perpetuate the communion of my own with the pop- 
ular heart. To do this successfully, I know that I must 
draw directly upon the world's experience, and upon the 
results of my own individual thinking, acting, living. I 
know that no truth can be uttered by a soul that has 
not realized it in some way, with hope to be heard. Pre- 



4 Gold-Foil. 

ceptive wisdom that has not been vivified by life has in 
itself no affinity for life. 

It is a blessed thing that the heart has an instinct 
which tells it without fail who has the right to teach it. 
The stricken mother, sitting by the side of the lifeless 
form of her first-born, will hear unmoved the words of 
consolation and the persuasions to resignation which are 
urged by one who has not suffered, even though he elo- 
quently draw motives from the highest heaven ; while 
the silent pressure of her hand by some humble creature 
who has hidden her treasure under the daisies, will in- 
spire her with calmness and strength. The world cares 
little for theorists and theories, — little for schools and 
schoolmen, — little for anything a man has to utter that 
has not previously been distilled in the alembic of his 
life. It is the life in literature that acts upon life. The 
pilgrim who knocks at the door of the human heart with 
gloved hands and attire borrowed for the occasion, will 
meet with tardy welcome and sorry entertainment ; but 
he who comes with shoes worn and dusty with the walk 
upon life's highway — with face bronzed by fierce suns 
and muscles knit by conflict with the evils of the pas- 
sage, will find abundant entrance and hospitable service. 

The machinery which I propose to adopt for my pur- 
pose is simple enough. It is the habit of the mind to 
condense into diminutive, agreeable, and striking forms 
the results of experience and observation in all the de- 
partments of life. As the carbon, disengaged by fire in 



An Exordial Essay, 5 

its multitudinous offices, crystallizes into a diamond 
that flashes fire from every facet, and bears at every 
angle the solvent power of the mother flame ; so great 
clouds of truth are evolved by human experience, 
which are crystallized at last into proverbs, that flash 
with the lights of history, and illuminate the darkness 
which rests upon the track of the future. The proverbs 
of a nation furnish the index to its spirit and the results 
of its civilization. As this spirit was kind or unkind — 
as this civilization was Christian or unchristian — are the 
proverbs valuable or worthless to us. I know of no 
more unworthy sentiments, no more dangerous here- 
sies, and no more mischievous lies than are to be found 
among the proverbs that have received currency, and 
a permanent record in the world ; but here and there 
among the ignoble paste shine noble gems, and these, 
as they may seem worthy, I propose to use as textual 
titles for these new essays of mine. I choose them be- 
cause they are the offspring of experience — because 
they are instinct with blood and breath and vitality. 
They have no likeness to the unverified deductions of 
reason. They are not propositions, conceived in the 
understanding and addressed to life, but propositions 
born of life itself, and addressed to the heart. They 
were not conceived in the minds of the great few, but 
they sprang from the life of the people. I give the peo- 
ple their own. 

Precisely what these essays of mine are to be, I 



6 Gold-Foil. 

cannot tell, because I do not know. I only know that 
there is an inexhaustible realm of practical truth around 
me waiting for revelation. There are multitudinous 
thoughts, now trailing upon the ground, that point their 
tendrils tipped with instinct toward this pen of mine, 
striving to reach and twine themselves around it that 
they may be lifted into the sunlight of popular^ recog- 
nition. I have my spindle and my distaff ready — 
my pen and mind — never doubting for an instant that 
God will send me flax. Toward the soul which places 
itself in the attitude Of reception, all things flow. For 
such a soul are all good gifts fashioned in heaven. The 
sun shines for it ; the birds sing for it ; up toward it the 
flowers swing their censers and waft their odors. Into 
it in golden streams flows the beauty of star-sprinkled 
rivers. The roar of waters and the plash of waterfalls 
give healthful pulse to its atmosphere. Into its open 
windows come the notes of human joy and woe in the 
triumphs and the struggles of the passing time. Past 
its open door Memory leads the long procession of its 
precious dead, who look in with sweet faces and whis- 
pers of peace. In front of it, Imagination marshals the 
forces of the future, and it thrills with the bugle-blast 
and trembles with the drum-beat of the thundering host. 
For perception were all things made, and to the door of 
perception all things tend ; so that the soul that throws 
itself wide open to all that is made for it shall find itself 
full. 



An Exordial Essay. 7 

When a soul thus receptive places itself in the atti- 
tude of expression, it has but to move its lips and the 
words will flow. The mind that has become a treasure- 
house of truth and beauty speaks a world into existence 
with every utterance. Expression is its instinct and its 
necessity. This expression may not always seek the 
shape of language, but it will assert itself in some form. 
The patriot reveals the secret of his soul when he 
gladly dies for his country, and sacrifices his life upon 
the altar of his inspiration. The Sister of Mercy tells 
the story of her love and her devotion, unseen and un- 
heard of the world, in midnight ministrations to the 
comfort of the sick and the dying. The modest mother 
expresses the love and life she has received from God 
and the things of God in the tutelage of the young 
spirits born of her, and the creation of a bright and 
graceful home for them. We give what we have re- 
ceived — that which is within us will out of us. Expres- 
sion is the necessity of possession. 

The form which expression takes depends upon nat- 
ural tendencies and aptitudes, and habits imposed by 
circumstances and opportunities. I suppose that to 
every man who writes a book, or is in the habit of 
writing books, there comes at the conclusion of each 
effort a sense of exhaustion. Then, through days, and 
weeks, and months, he walks contentedly, taking in 
new food — without method, without design — any thing, 
every thing — regaling his sensibilities, ministering to 



8 Gold-Foil. 

his appetite for knowledge, exercising his sympathies, 
absorbing greedily all the influences evolved by the 
life around him, till there steals upon him, insensibly, 
the desire for another instalment of expression in the 
habitual way. He finds himself organizing the truth 
he has received into harmonious and striking forms. 
He is arrested in fits of abstraction into which he has 
fallen unawares. He will not be content until the pen is 
in his hand, and his mind has applied itself to the work 
demanded by its condition. 

But about the flax that God sends to such a man : 
this would all seem to be pulled from the earth, softened 
by sun and rain, and broken and hackled by natural and 
mechanical processes. True : and yet I imagine there 
are few thinking minds in the world that are not 
aware of a double process by which expression is ar- 
rived at — one entirely involuntary, lying deep down in 
the consciousness, and operated independently of voli- 
tion ; and another, voluntary, lying upon the surface, 
and mostly engaged in the invention of forms — depen- 
dent for materials upon the process beneath it. This is 
the reason why millions of men undertake to do what 
they never can do. The involuntary — the divine process 
— working profoundly in their natures, throws up mate- 
rials which they have no power to clothe in language, or 
present in forms of art which the mind will recognize 
as appropriate. Such men are misled. They strive 
to write essays, and fail. They struggle to produce 



An Exordial Essay. 9 

poems, but cannot. They have abundant materials for 
essays and epics in them, but they are incapable of com- 
bining and expressing them. Many men and women 
spend their lives in unsuccessful efforts to spin the flax 
God sends them upon a wheel they can never use. 
The trouble with these people is that they have made a 
mistake in their spindle. It is with the human mind 
as with the plant. Deep down under ground there is a 
process of selection going on, by which salts and juices 
are drawn by a million roots and rootlets into the stem 
— drawn from masses of mould and sand and gravel — 
and sent upward to be acted upon again — flax sent up 
by God to be spun. Every tree and shrub is a distaff 
for holding, and every twig a spindle for spinning the 
material with which God invests it. One twig, by a 
power of its own, will make an apple, another a peach, 
another a pear, another will spin through long weeks 
upon a round, green bud, and then weave into it star- 
beams and moonbeams and sunbeams, and burst into a 
rose. The man full of juices and rich with life, who was 
made simply to bear Roxbury Russets, and yet under- 
takes to bear roses or magnolia blossoms, will always 
fail. Blessed is that man who knows his own distaff, 
and has found his own spindle. 

It is with the conviction that this pen which I hold is 

my particular spindle that I begin upon the flax God 

sends me, through a process entirely independent of 

my will, and undertake to spin a series of essays, kind 

i* 



10 Gold- Foil. 

readers, for you. That I may be able to contribute a 
worthy thread to the warp of your lives, or at least to 
furnish a portion of their woof — contributing to their 
substance, if not to their beauty — is my warmest wish 
and my most earnest prayer. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE BIBLE. 

" He that leaves Certainty and sticks to Chance, 
When fools pipe, he may dance." 

" Better ride an ass that carries us than a horse that throws us." 

WE live in the future. Even the happiness of the 
present is made up mostly of that delightful dis- 
content which the hope of better things inspires. We 
lie all our invalid lives by the side of our Bethesda, 
watching the uneasy quicksand upon its bottom, in its 
silvery eruptions, and listening to the murmuring gurgle 
of the retiring streamlet, yet waiting evermore for the 
angel to come and stir the waters that we may be blest. 
The angel comes, and the waters are stirred, but not for 
us ; and, though others grasp the blessing which we may 
not, we look for the angel still, and in this sweet looking 
fall happily asleep at last, and waken possibly in the 
angel's arms ; — possibly, where ? As the future holds 
our happiness and hopes, so does it also hold our fears 
and our apprehensions ; and the mind is on a constant 



1 2 Gold-FoiL 

outlook for that upon which it can best rely to avoid the 
evils which it dreads, and secure the good which it de- 
sires. It reaches in all directions with its hands, and 
tries in all directions with its feet, for a solid basis of 
calculation and expectation, with reference to its future 
pleasure and pain. As the future is inscrutable, it reads 
carefully the lessons of experience, studies the nature 
and tendency of things having relation to its life, erects 
theories and institutes schemes of good, and bends its 
energies to the achievement and security of protection, 
necessary ministry, and all desirable possession. All 
this it does with reference to the few years of mortal 
life which remain to it. 

But there is a God above the soul, and there is some- 
thing within it which prophesies of another life. The 
body is to die ; so much is certain. What lies beyond ? 
No one who passes the charmed boundary comes back 
to tell. The imagination visits the realm of shadows— * 
sent out from some window of the soul over life's restless 
waters — but wings its way wearily back with no olive- 
leaf in its beak as a token of emerging life beyond the 
closely bending horizon. The great sun comes and goes 
in heaven, yet breathes no secret of the ethereal wilder- 
nesses. The crescent moon cleaves her nightly passage 
across the upper deep, but tosses overboard no message, 
and displays no signals. The sentinel stars challenge 
each other as they walk their nightly rounds, but we 
catch no syllable of the countersign which gives passage 



The Bible. 13 

to the heavenly camp. Shut in ! Shut in ! Between 
this life and the other life there is a great gulf fixed, 
across which neither eye nor foot can travel. The gen- 
tle friend whose eyes we closed in their last sleep long 
years ago, died with rapture in her wonder-stricken eyes, 
a smile of ineffable joy upon her lips, and hands folded 
over a triumphant heart ; but her lips were past speech, 
and intimated nothing of the vision that enthralled her. 

So, in the lack of all demonstration, we have but one 
resort, and that is to faith. Faith must build a bridge 
for us ; faith must weave wings for us ; and that faith 
must find materials for its fabrics brought from the other 
side of the gulf, and not produced on this. We cannot 
enter the spirit land to explore, record, and report ; so 
all we get must be revealed to us. We may talk never 
so loudly of the intimations of the immortality within us, 
of the light of reason and of conscience, of the godlike 
human soul ; we may speculate with marvellous ingenuity 
upon the future development and destiny of powers that 
seem angelic even to ourselves, but it is all conjecture — 
it is all as unsubstantial as the dreams that haunt our 
slumbers. Unless God teach us of the things of God, 
or delegate some occupant of a heavenly seat to tell us 
of the things of heaven and of the destiny of the great 
family of intelligences to which we belong, we shall know 
nothing upon these subjects. Briefly, all knowledge 
concerning the future condition of men must come from 
the other world to this, and not through any agency initi- 



H Gold- Foil. 

ated in this. We are thus helplessly, inevitably, left to 
revelation. We cannot help ourselves. We may flutter 
and flounder under this conviction as much as we choose, 
but fluttering and floundering avail nothing. If the 
fact that we are immortal be not revealed to us by a 
Being who knows, and cannot lie ; if the way to make 
our immortality a happy one be not pointed out to us by 
one who has the right to direct, then are we in darkness 
that may be felt — then are we afloat upon a wide sea, 
without rudder or compass. 

Now, there can be no faith in any revelation concern- 
ing the future state, and no faith in the things revealed, 
without a thorough conviction on the part of the soul ex- 
ercising it that the source from which these revelations 
come is trustworthy. They must also be authoritative, 
and fully received as such into the convictions, or they 
are nothing. A revelation from any source, touching 
whose authority the soul admits a doubt, is absolutely 
valueless as an inspirer of faith. It is for this reason 
that all the unsettled mind in Christendom is drift- 
ing either towards an infallible Bible, or an infallible 
church, or an infallible atheism — infallible because de- 
nying everything — shutting God and the future out of 
existence. With many the drifting process is done 
with, and the journey is completed in rest and satis- 
faction. Many can say, with the Bible upon the heart 
— " This is God's word. It is my rule of life. I believe 
in the God and the immortality which it reveals. I trust 



The Bible. 15 

in it, and am happy." Others, educated to believe in 
an infallible church, or struggling through frightful years 
of skepticism, have taken refuge in Rome, and tied up 
to the element of infallibility which they imagine they 
find there. Others still are either practically or profes- 
sedly atheists and infidels, discarding Bible and church, 
and resting, or trying to rest, in the infallibility of a 
broad negation. 

It is not for me to prove the infallibility of the Bible, 
in part or in whole. I have not undertaken the task in 
this article, nor do I propose to undertake it in any 
future article. Neither do I undertake to show that an 
infallible church cannot be made out of fallible mate- 
rials. Still less do I undertake to prove the existence 
of a God and a future life. I take it for granted that 
the question of a future life is one of great interest to 
all minds, and the question of its happiness or misery, 
of the greatest, to most. I assume that the Bible com- 
municates a correct knowledge of God and human duty 
and destiny, or that nothing whatever is known of them. 
I assert that in the degree in which this Bible has, been 
received, as a whole and in particulars, as the rule of 
faith and duty, have those thus receiving it found rest, 
peace, fearlessness of the future, and hope of everlast- 
ing happiness. I affirm that in the degree in which 
men have wandered away from this Bible into skepti- 
cism, or taken it into their hands to cheapen the char- 
acter of its inspiration — to cut, and cull, and criticise — 



1 6 Gold- Foil. 

have they made themselves and others unhappy. All 
that has been done to weaken the foundation of an 
implicit faith in the Bible, as a whole, has been at the 
expense of the sense of religious obligation, and at the 
cost of human happiness. 

The mind, in such a matter as this, seeks for some- 
thing reliable, and will have it. If it cannot find it, it 
will make it. If it will not accept the Bible as such, it 
will make an infallible church, or deify and enthrone 
the human reason. One of the most interesting devel- 
opments of modern spiritualism is the illustration which 
it gives us of this fact. Tired with the puerile and con- 
tradictory revelations which it gets, or supposes it gets, 
from the spirit world, it has, in multitudes of instances, 
sunk into a cold rationalism, or thrown itself, disgusted 
and discouraged, upon the bosom of the Catholic 
Church, by a very necessity. Now there is no logical 
tendency of spiritualism into systems so diverse as 
these. It is the instinctive leap of a soul, misled by its 
intellect, yet true to its wants, out of a jargon of 
demoniacal whims into something which has, or as- 
sumes to have, infallibility. The rush of atheists and 
infidels into spiritualism — atheists and infidels practical 
and theoretical — is the rush of a class of minds that 
find it hard to believe without demonstration, and seek 
among these necromantical manifestations for some- 
thing better than its reason, and more readily evident 
to it than the revelations of the Bible. 



The Bible. 17 

I say that toward a trustworthy Bible, or a church 
that claims to be infallible, or an atheism and infidelity 
growing out of the deification of the human reason, the 
mind of all unsettled Christendom is drifting, by a 
necessity of its nature. It will have something upon 
which it can rely. It cannot abide uncertainty; it 
must have faith. History will teach us something of 
the different results thrown up by these three currents 
of life. It is hardly necessary to allude to the paraly- 
sis of spiritual life that befalls a soul which places 
itself in the keeping of a church — which surrenders 
itself to the mortifications and irrational impositions 
of an irresponsible hierarchy. The abuses, outrages, 
corruptions, wars, and awful immoralities that have 
grown out of a church like this, are matters which 
almost monopolize the pages of history, and suffi- 
ciently prove that it has its basis in error and its au- 
thority in arrogant assumption. When the people of 
France pulled down both God and the church, and set 
up reason in their place, all the infernal elements of 
human nature held their brief high carnival. That one 
terrific experiment should be enough for a thousand 
worlds, through countless years. 

So, cut off in all other directions, we come back to 
the Bible. If that be not authoritative, nothing is. If 
that be not infallible, as a revelation from God of his 
own character, the nature of the coming life, and the 
relations of this life to it, then nothing is infallible, and 



1 8 Gold- Foil. 

the faith, without which earth is a cheat and life a sorry- 
jest, is impossible. What do we find to be the fruits 
of a living, practical faith in the Bible ? The most 
prominent, or that which appears most prominent, in 
the eyes of the world, is a missionary spirit in contra- 
distinction to a proselyting spirit. The really mission- 
ary work of the world has been done in the past, and is 
now being effected, by those who receive the Bible un- 
mutilated as God's word to men. The noblest heroisms 
that illustrate the history of the race have their inspira- 
tion in implicit faith in the Bible. Men in whom life 
was fresh and strong, and women who were the imper- 
sonations of gentleness and delicacy, have died for it 
the martyr's death of fire, singing until the red-tongued 
flames licked up their breath. Out of it have come all 
pure moralities. Forth from it have sprung all sweet 
charities. It has been the motive power of regenera- 
tion and reformation to millions of men. It has com- 
forted the humble, consoled the mourning, sustained 
the suffering, and given trust and triumph to the dying. 
The wise old man has fallen asleep with it folded to his 
breast. The simple cottager has used it for his dying 
pillow ; and even the innocent child has breathed his 
last happy sigh with his fingers between its promise- 
freighted leaves. 

Suppose it could be proved that this Bible is all a 
fable : in what would the demonstration benefit us ? It 
is all we have. If it do not teach us the truth concern- 



The Bible, 19 

ing the future life, and instruct us in the way of making 
that future life a happy one, then there is nothing that 
does. Suppose it could be proved that parts of this 
Bible are fabulous, and that those portions which are 
not so were inspired in a kind of general way, like the 
writings of all genius which is both great and good : who 
would be the better or the happier for it ? I believe it 
to be demonstrable that no greater calamity could befall 
the human race than either the general loosening up, or 
the entire destruction, of faith in the Bible, even were 
the whole of it a cunning invention of the brain of man. 
Better an ass that carries us than a horse that throws 
us. Better faith in a fable which inspires to good deeds, 
conducts our powers to noble ends, make us loving, gen- 
tle and heroic, eradicates our selfishness, establishes 
within us the principle of benevolence and enables us to 
meet death with equanimity if not with triumph, in the 
hope of a glorious resurrection and a happy immortality, 
than the skepticism of kingly reason, which only needs 
to be carried to its legitimate issues to bestialize the 
human race, and drape the earth in the blackness of 
Tartarus. 

So, I say, let us stick to the Bible — the whole of it — 
from Genesis to Revelation. When the apostle, stand- 
ing on the heights of inspiration, places the hand of the 
second Adam in the hand of the first — the Adam of 
Genesis — I believe there was such an Adam, and that 
the apostle believed it, and knew it. When I see 



20 Gold-Foil. 

Christianity emerging naturally and logically from a 
religion of types and ordinances, I believe that that 
religion is a portion of the system of divine truth. 
When Christ, standing in the Temple, declares that 
the Scriptures testify of him, I believe they do thus 
testify, and that it is right that they be bound up with 
the Gospels and the Epistles as an essential portion 
of the grand whole. I find the writers of the New 
Testament constantly referring to the Old, and the 
Old prophesying, or recording the preparation for, the 
events described in the New. There is much that I 
do not understand, and no little that seems incredible ; 
but I see no leaf that I have either the right or the wish 
to tear out and cast away. I receive it as, in itself, in- 
dependent of my reason and my knowledge, an authen- 
tic, inspired, and harmonious whole. I pin my faith to 
it, and rely upon it as the foundation of my own hope 
and the hope of the world. 

Rational minds will ask for no higher proof that the 
Bible, in its entirety, is reliable as a revelation from 
God, than the nature of the faith which is based upon 
it, and the results of that faith — the noblest phenomena 
of human experience — the consummate fruitage of hu- 
man civilization. But were it otherwise, the Bible is 
our best wealth. Were it otherwise, Heaven withhold 
the hand that would touch it destructively ! Crazy Kate, 
who parted with her sailor boy at the garden gate half 
a century ago, believes he will come back to her again, 



The Bible. 21 

carries still in her withered bosom the keepsake which 
he gave her, and decks her silvery hair and her little 
room with flowers, to give him fitting welcome. This 
hope is her all. In this she lives ; and in this, fallacious 
though it be, resides all the significance of her life. As 
she stands upon the rock worn smooth by her constant 
feet, and gazes hopefully across the saddening sea into 
the yellow sunset, to catch a glimpse of the long-ex- 
pected sail, would it not be inhuman to plunder her of 
the keepsake and toss it into the waves, or tear from her 
the hope that fills with blood and breath the long per- 
ished object of her idolatry, and swells the phantom 
sails that are winging him to her bosom ? Whether 
true or false, the Bible is our all — the one regenerative, 
redemptive agency in the world — the only word that 
even sounds as if it came from the other side of the 
wave. If we lose it, we are lost. 



CHAPTER III. 

PA TIENCE. 

"The world was not made in a minute." 

" Every thing comes in time to him who can wait." 

" For all one's early rising it dawns none the sooner." 

"What ripens fast does not last," or, "Soon ripe, soon rotten." 

IF there be one attribute of the Deity which astonishes 
me more than another, it is the attribute of patience. 
The Great Soul that sits on the throne of the universe 
is not, never was, and never will be, in a hurry. In the 
realm of nature, everything has been wrought out in 
the august consciousness of infinite leisure ; and I bless 
God for that geology which gives me a key to the pa- 
tience in which the creative processes were effected. 
Man has but a brief history. A line of nineteen old 
men, centenarians, would, if they were to join hands, 
clasp the hand of Christ ; and the sixtieth of such a 
line would tell us that his name is Adam, and that he 
does not know who his mother was. Yet this wonderful 
earth, unquestionably constructed with reference to the 
accommodation of our race, was begun so long ago that 



Patience. 23 

none but fools undertake to reckon its age by the meas- 
urement of years. Ah ! what baths of fire and floods 
of water ; what earthquakes, eruptions, upheavals, and 
storms ; what rise and fall of vegetable and animal dis- 
pensations ; what melting and moulding and combining 
of elements, have been patiently gone through with, to fit 
up this dwelling-place of man ! When I look back upon 
the misty surface of the dimly retiring ages — the smok- 
ing track over which the train of creative change has 
swept — it fades until the sky of the past eternity shuts 
down upon the vision ; and I only know that far beyond 
that point — infinitely far — that train commenced its prog- 
ress, and that, even then, God only opened his hand to 
give flight to a thought that He had held imprisoned 
from eternity ! 

But the old rocks tell us that there was a time when 
animal life began — rude and rudimentary ; typical and 
prophetic, the geologists say. We may call it typical 
and prophetic, if we choose ; and, in a sense, it un- 
doubtedly is so. But, to me, all these forms of animal 
life are simply patient studies of man. There seem to 
be parts of man in every thing that went before him. 
As I find in the studio of the artist who has completed a 
great picture, studies of heads and hands, and limbs 
and scenes which the picture embodies — convenient 
prisons of fleeting ideas — experiments in composition 
and effect — so do I find in the records of pre-Adamic 
life only a succession of studies having reference to the 



24 Gold- Foil. 

great picture of humanity. God was in no haste to get 
the world ready for man, and in no haste to make him. 
There was coal to lay up in exhaustless storehouses. 
There were continents to be upheaved, seas to chain, 
river-channels to carve. There was an infinite variety 
of germs to be invented and made in heaven, a soil to 
be prepared for their reception on the earth's surface, 
and a broadcast sowing to be effected. What infinite 
detail ! What intimate arrangement of special laws that 
should not clash with one another ! How could the 
Creator wait so long to see the being for whom all this 
painstaking preparation was in progress ? 

Well, when the process was at last completed ; when 
the marvellously beautiful but diminutive form of Adam 
walked out of God's thought into the morning sunlight 
of Eden — walked through flowers and odors, and among 
animals that licked his hand and gambolled around him 
unscared ; when the impalpable forms of angels were 
thick around him in an atmosphere uneasy with its bur- 
den of vitality, how did the Creator regard him — the 
object of all this patient working and waiting ? It was 
what we should call " a great success." It was " very 
popular " with the observing host. The morning stars 
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ; 
but God did not even say that it was "very good;" 
He only "saw" that it was so. No ruffle of exulta- 
tion swept over the bosom of that sublime patience, for 
even then he had only made a beginning ! He had only 



Patience, 2$ 

made a place for his creatures to dwell in. Before Him 
stretched almost infinite cycles of duration. In the far 
perspective, He saw nations rise and sink, civilizations i 
blossom and decay, the advent and the mission of Jesus, ^ r 
the struggles of good and evil, of light and darkness, of 
truth and error ; and on the remote pinnacle of destiny,' A 
faintly rising to his eye in the eternity before him, the^H_ 
blazing windows and the white pillars and spires of the 
Temple of Consummation ! 

Some people wonder how God can bear as He does 
with human frailty and wickedness. In effect, they ask Z 
why He does not sweep the whole race out of existence, 
and start again. As if the Being who had patiently 
wrought and waited for myriads of ages to prepare for 
man had not patience to allow him to work out his des r 
tiny ! Ah, short-sighted mortals ! Has not God an 
eternity to accomplish His ends in ? Is He, before the 
eyes of a universe, to relinquish an experiment, and 
pronounce that to be a failure on which He has ex- 
pended such infinite pains and patience ? Not He ; 
and the man must be idiotic who cannot draw from 
this patience food for hope, even when mercy seems 
exhausted. 

But this divine element enters more or less into 
human character, and it is with this that we have 
specially to do. There is no well-doing — no godlike 
doing — that is not patient doing. There is no great 
achievement that is not the result of patient working 



26 v Gold-Foil. 

and waiting. There is no royal road to any thing. 
One thing at a time — all things in succession. That 
which grows fast, withers as rapidly ; that which grows 
slowly, endures. The silver-leafed poplar grows in one 
decade, and dies in the next ; the oak takes its century 
to grow in, and lives and dies at leisure. This law runs 
through all vegetation, through all creation, and through 
all human achievement. A fortune won in a day is lost 
in a day ; a fortune won slowly, and slowly compacted, 
seems to acquire from the hand that won it the prop- 
erty of endurance. We all see this, we all acknowl- 
edge it, yet we are all in a hurry. We are in haste for 
position ; we are in haste for wealth ; we are in haste 
for fame ; we are in haste for every thing that is desir- 
able, and that shapes itself into an object of life. In 
that worthiest of all struggles — the struggle for self- 
mastery and goodness — we are far less patient with 
ourselves than God is with us. We forget, too, in our 
impatience with others — with their weakness and wrong- 
doing — that there is One who sees this weakness and 
wickedness as we never can see it, yet is unruffled by 
it. "Work and wait" — "work and wait" — is what 
God says to us in Creation and in Providence. We 
work, and that is godlike ; we get impatient, and there 
crops out our human weakness. 

Man of business, do the gains come in slowly? Do 
your neighbors outstrip you in prosperity ? Do you 
hear of friends grown suddenly rich by great specula- 



Patience. 27 

tions, and is your heart discouraged with the prospect 
before you ? Does it seem to you that your lot is hard 
beyond that of other men ? God is only trying to see 
how much you are like Him — how much of His own 
life is in you. If He is the kind father I take Him to 
be, He is quite as anxious to bless you as you are 
anxious to be blest ; and as He does not appear to be 
in a hurry to have you become rich, it strikes me that 
it would be quite as well for you to take your stand 
with Him, and be willing to work and wait. Don't be 
in a hurry. The world was not made in a minute ; yet 
what a marvel of beauty and wealth it is ! You say 
that you have worked hard enough, and that is very 
well ; but have you done that which is harder than 
work, and quite as essential — have you waited patiently 
and well? Have you not been fretting and complain- 
ing all the time ? All things come in time to him who 
can wait. 

Weary mother, with a clamorous family at your knee 
— a family clamorous for bread, for clothing, for amuse- 
ment, for change for their restless natures — do you get 
impatient ; and do the fretful words sometimes escape 
to wound those young ears and chafe those fresh 
hearts ? Do you look forward through ten, fifteen, 
or twenty years, and, seeing no intermission of daily 
care for these impulsive spirits, and ceaseless ministry 
to their fickle impulses, sigh over your bondage ? Be 
patient. Think of God's patience with his family — a 



28 Gold-Foil. 

thousand millions here on earth alone — deadly quarrels 
going on among them all the time, cheating between 
brethren, wildness with greed for gold, millions of them 
never looking up to thank* the hand that feeds them 
during their life ! Think how He looks down, and sees 
millions bound in compulsory servitude to other mil- 
lions — sees great multitudes meet in the madness of 
war to slaughter one another ; sees a whole world ly- 
ing in wickedness, carelessness, and ingratitude. Mark 
how He causes the seasons to come and go, how seed- 
time and harvest fail not, how His unwearied servant 
the sun shines on the evil and the good alike, how the 
gentle rain falls with no discrimination on the just and 
the unjust. Think how he patiently bears with your 
impatience. Listen ! There comes no outcry from the 
heavens to still all this wild unrest ; but gently, pa- 
tiently, the ministry of nature and of Providence pro- 
ceeds from day to day and from year to year — as 
gently and patiently and unremittingly, as if it were 
universally greeted with gratitude, and nourished only 
plants that were blossoming with praise. Can you not 
be patient with the little ones you love for a little 
while ? You really ought to be ashamed of impatience, 
with such an example of patience as God gives, espe- 
cially as you are a sharer in its benefits. 

Discouraged pastor, mourning over the lack of re- 
sults in your ministry, do you sometimes get impatient 
with the listlessness and coldness of your flock, and rail 



Patience, 29 

at them in good set terms ? Surely you have forgotten 
who and what you are. You are God's minister — the 
promulgator of his religion. He sent the Great Teacher 
to the earth eighteen hundred years ago : and those to 
whom He was sent maligned Him, doubted Him, perse- 
cuted and killed Him. For eighteen hundred years He 
has patiently waited to see the religion of Jesus estab- 
lished in the earth, and he is waiting patiently still, 
though it spreads so slowly that its progress from cen- 
tury to century can hardly be traced. He planted the 
true seed, and He is confident that it will germinate 
and grow, until its branches shall fill the whole earth. 
He has confidence in His truth : have you ? Can you 
not be content, like Him, to plant, and nourish, and 
water, and tenderly prune, and trust for the issue ? He 
has distinctly told you that with all your planting and 
watering the increase is only of Him. If you are faith- 
ful in these offices, and get impatient for results, does 
it not occur to you that you are getting quite as im- 
patient with God as you are with your people ? If 
He have reason for withholding increase, you have 
no reason to find fault. The work is His, the results 
are His — they are not yours. Therefore be content to 
work and wait, for no man can work in perfect harmony 
with God who is not as willing to wait as to work. God 
works and waits always, and in every thing, and you are 
a discord in the economy of His universal scheme the 
moment you become impatient. 



30 Gold- Foil. 

Champion of Truth, lover of humanity, hater of 
wrong, do you grow tired and disgusted with your fel- 
lows ? Do you grow angry when you contemplate insti- 
tuted cruelty ? Are you tempted to turn your back 
upon those whom you have striven to bless, when they 
stop their ears, or laugh you in the face ? Do you feel 
your spirit stirred with deep disgust, or swelling with 
rage, when those to whom you have given your best 
life — your noblest love, your most humane impulses, 
your truest ideal of that which is good — contemn you, 
misconstrue you, and persecute you ; — when those whom 
you seek to reform brand you as a pestilent fellow, a 
disturber, and a busybody ? It is very natural that you 
should do so, but it is far from godlike. Be patient. 
If this world of natural beauty was not made in a min- 
ute ; if it had to go through convulsions and changes, 
age after age, before the flowers could grow and the 
maize could spring, think you that the little drop of 
vital power that is in you can reform the world of mind, 
and bring out of chaos the realization of the fair ideal 
that is in you in the brief space of your life ? Pour into 
your age your whole life, if it be pure and good, and 
be sure that you have done something — your little all. 
There shall be no drop of that life wasted. Where you 
put it there it shall be, an atom in the slowly rising 
monument of a world redeemed to goodness. 

If you cannot take counsel of God in this thing, and, 
with the counsel, courage, take it from the most insig- 



Patience. 3 1 

nificant of His creatures — the madrepores that build 
islands covered with gardens of wonderful beauty un- 
der the sea. The little polyp may well be discouraged 
when it sees how little it can do in the creation of the 
coral world to which, by a law of its nature, it is bound 
to contribute. But it gives to this world the entire re- 
sults of its little life — a calcareous atom — and then it 
dies. But that atom is not lost ; God takes care of that. 
All He asks of the madrepore is its life, and though it 
may not witness the glory of the structure it assists to 
rear, it has a place in the structure — an essential place 
— and there it is glorified. Through those strangely 
fashioned trees the green sea sweeps and wondering 
monsters swim and stare, till, little by little, as the ages 
with heavy feet tramp over the upper earth, they rear 
themselves into the light, and hold the turbulent sea 
asleep beneath the smile of God. Little by little they 
lay the foundation upon which a new life rests, and 
become the eternal pillars of a temple in which man 
worships, and from which his voice of praise ascends to 
Heaven. Therefore, if the patience of God do not 
inspire and instruct you, let the self-sacrifice of the 
polyp shame you, and the results of that sacrifice en- 
courage you. Give that little life of yours with its little 
result to the twig where you hang, never minding the 
surges of the sea that try to dislodge you, nor the 
monsters that stare at you, and be sure that the tree 
shall emerge at last into the light of Heaven — the 



32 Gold- Foil. 

basis and the assurance of a new and glorious life for 
a race. 

Poet, forger of ideals, dreamer among the possibili- 
ties of life, prophet of the millennium, do you get im- 
patient with the prosaic life around you — the dulness, 
and the earthliness, and the brutishness of men ? Fret 
not. Go forward into the realm which stretches before 
you ; climb the highest mountain you can reach, and 
plant a cross there. The nations will come up to it 
some day. Work for immortality if you will ; then wait 
for it. If your own age fail to recognize you, a coming 
age will not. Plunge into the eternal forest that sleeps 
in front, and blaze the trees. Be a pioneer of Time's 
armies as they march into the unseen and unknown. 
Signalize the advance guard from afar. If you have 
the privilege of living the glorious life of which you 
dream, are you not paid ? Why, there are uncounted 
multitudes who walk under the stars, and never dream 
that they are beautiful. There are crowds who trample 
a flower into the dust, without once thinking that they 
have one of the sweetest thoughts of God under their 
heels. There are myriads of stolid eyes that gaze into 
the ethereal vermilion of a sunset without dreaming that 
God lighted the fire. The world could see no beauty in 
the greatest life and character that ever existed, why 
they should desire it, and yet God does not get im- 
patient because He is not recognized. The stars stud 
the sky as thickly as ever ; the flowers bloom as freshly 



Patience. 33 

as at first, and breathe no complaints with their dying 
perfume ; the sunset patiently varies its picture from 
nightfall to nightfall, though no one praises it ; and 
Christ, in the garb of humble men and women, looks 
from pure and patient eyes in every street, and looks 
none the less sweetly because he is not seen. There- 
fore, O poet, be patient, though the world see not the 
visions that enchain you, and remember what compan- 
ionship is yours. Aye, be patient \ 



CHAPTER IV. 

PERFECT LIBERTY. 

" For the upright there are no laws." 

*' Laws were made for rogues." 

41 Love rules his kingdom without a sword." 

44 Love makes labor light." 

A TIPSY man, laboring alike under an uncomfortable 
confusion of ideas and an incompetent control of 
his muscles, is apt to find a sidewalk of common width 
too narrow for him. The trees and lamp -posts rush 
with violence to assault him, curbstones rise in his path 
with ruffianly greetings, and the inclination of a dead 
level is such that at last he slides into the gutter, where 
he breathes out his curses upon the dangers of the way. 
A sober man walks the same path without seeing lamp- 
post or tree, and without being conscious of the slight- 
est restraint upon his movements. We put a poke upon 
a vicious cow, because she has a disposition to go pre- 
cisely where she is not wanted to go — into a cornfield, 
where she will do serious damage to the proprietor, and 
kill herself with over-eating. She comes up to the fence 



Perfect Liberty, 35 

that she would fain demolish or surmount, and the new 
restraint vexes her beyond measure. Her companion 
in the field is an innocent docile creature, that is con- 
tent with her honest grass, and her honest way of getting 
it. So, while the thief stands raving and floundering at 
the fence, she fills herself with clover, and contentedly 
lies down to the pleasant task of rumination, without a 
thought of restraint or deprivation. For the innocent 
cow there is no poke. 

The perfect liberty of, any faculty of the mind lies 
within the range of its office. Acquisitiveness is a fac- 
ulty of the mind. It is endowed with a certain legiti- 
mate office, and in that office it has full liberty — liberty 
in the field in which it has its life. If it overstep the 
bound of its office, and steal, it preys upon the fruits of 
the liberty of others, and degenerates into licentiousness. 
Then it feels the law which defines the boundaries of its 
field of liberty, but until that time, the law is a thing un- 
felt. A horse, standing upon the beach, and looking 
out to the sea as a realm forbidden to him, may be imag- 
ined to find fault with the line of surf that warns him 
away from a region in which he has no legitimate rights 
and no legitimate office. The beach may be free to him 
for miles, and pastures may recede from it for other 
miles, over which he has liberty to run and range at will, 
with the opportunity to supply all his wants, and expend 
all his vitality. If he plunge into the sea, he feels 
the law that defines the boundaries of his perfect lib- 



36 Gold-Foil. 

erty. Laws are the very bulwarks of liberty. They de- 
fine every man's rights, and stand between and defend 
the individual liberties of all men. The moment that 
law is destroyed, liberty is lost ; and men left free to 
enter upon the domains of each other, destroy each 
other's rights, and invade the field of each other's liberty. 

No man ever feels the restraint of law so long as he 
remains within the sphere of his liberty — a sphere, by 
the way, always large enough for the full exercise of his 
powers and the supply of all his legitimate wants. It 
is only rogues who feel the restraints of law. We live 
in a free country, and its freedom consists in the protec- 
tion which the laws give to each man's liberty to pursue 
his legitimate ends of life in a legitimate way. We re- 
joice in these laws, because they guard our liberty — not 
because they interfere with it. We make them, support 
them, and obey them, in the exercise of our liberty. 
They stand between us and that licentiousness which is 
the invader and destroyer of liberty. There is no state 
of society under heaven, and there can be none, where 
perfect liberty exists, without an obedience to law so 
glad and so entire that the restraints of the law are 
unfelt. 

This much is true, without any reference to God, or 
any relation to religion. Thus much is philosophically 
true. Advancing a step in the discussion, another ele- 
ment enters in — the element of love — the perfect law of 
liberty. The moment the soul is lifted in love to its 



Perfect Liberty, 37 

Maker, and extended in love to its fellows, the whole 
realm of law is illuminated by a new light, and there is 
only darkness beyond its boundaries. Before this illu- 
mination, self-interest, or right philosophical judgment 
may be sufficient to keep the soul contentedly within 
the boundaries of law. After it, it becomes the subject 
of duty — duty to God and duty to man. It recognizes re- 
lationships on the lines of which it is to flow out in piety 
and good works. The law which defines its individual 
liberty is in a measure sunk out of sight, and the law 
which defines its duty is that only which it sees. The 
influx of this new love is essentially the influx of a 
new life. This realm of duty is the one which, through 
the vestibule of law, I have endeavored to lead the 
reader. 

Can the soul enjoy perfect liberty in the realm of 
duty ? This question I wish to answer for the benefit of a 
great multitude of men and women who, with a sense of 
great self-sacrifice, have taken upon them the responsi- 
bilities of the Christian life. To these, this life is a life 
of crosses and mortifications. They find their duty un- 
pleasant and onerous. It is to them a law of restraint 
and constraint. They are constantly oppressed with 
what they denominate "a sense of duty." It torments 
them with a consciousness of their inefficiency, with a 
painful and persistent questioning of their motives, with 
multiplied and perplexing doubts of the genuineness of 
their religious experience. Christian liberty is a phrase 



38 Gold-Foil. 

of which they know not the meaning, for they are, in fact 
and in feeling, the slaves of duty. They feel them- 
selves enchained within the bounds of a system su- 
perinduced upon their life, and not in any proper sense 
incorporated with it. 

I ask the question again : Can the soul enjoy perfect 
liberty in the realm of duty ? I answer in the affirma- 
tive, and express my belief that that liberty may be of 
as much higher quality and of as much greater extent 
than in the realm of pure law, as the love from which it 
springs is superior as a basis of action to an intellectual 
apprehension and acceptation of law as the condition of 
liberty. Love is its own law, and duty is only the name 
of those lines of action which naturally flow out from 
love. I apprehend nothing as Christian duty which does 
not naturally flow out from Christian love. All those 
actions which love naturally dictates and performs, if 
performed by any individual as simple duties — per- 
formed grudgingly and difficultly — amount to nothing 
as Christian actions. They become simply bald acts of 
morality, and have no connection with religion. Let 
me not be misunderstood. Love may constrain to acts 
that, for various reasons, are difficult of performance ; 
but difficult acts, performed from a simple sense of duty 
— acts in no way growing out of love — acts performed 
only for the satisfaction of conscience and for the acqui- 
sition of mental peace — are not Christian acts, essen- 
tially, and cannot be made to appear such. 



Perfect Liberty. 39 

Love, I say again, is its own law. A man who loves 
God supremely, and his neighbor as himself, may do 
exactly what he pleases — all that he wishes to do — all 
that by this love he is moved to do. There is no li- 
cense here, for a man possessed by these affections will 
please to do, wish to do, and be moved to do, only those 
things that follow the lines of duty. Here is Christian 
liberty, and it is nowhere else. Here is Christian liber- 
ty, and there is no such other liberty as this under the 
sun. It is the liberty of angels and of God Himself. 
It rises infinitely above the liberty defined by law, and 
is, in fact and in terms, " the liberty of the sons of 
God " — one of the most suggestive and inspiriting 
phrases, by the way, contained within the lids of the 
Bible. The most beautiful sight this earth affords is a 
man or woman so filled with love that duty is only a 
name, and its performance the natural outflow and ex- 
pression of the love which has become the central prin- 
ciple of their life. For such men arid women there is 
neither law nor duty, as a hinderance to perfect liberty. 
They are on a plane above both. They live essentially 
in the same love out of which law and duty proceeded. 
Law and duty were born of love. Love originally drew 
their outlines and carved the channels of their operation, 
and, rising into an appropriation and incorporation, of 
the mother element, the soul loses, of course, the ne- 
cessity of its offspring, — has, in fact, within itself both 
element and offspring. 



4o Gold-Foil. 

Perhaps my meaning will be more exactly appre- 
hended by the use of illustrations. A woman finds her- 
self the mother of a family of children, whom she loves 
as her own life. It is against the law that she turn them 
out of doors, or kill them, or maltreat them in any way. 
Does she feel the restraint of these laws ? Does she 
ever think of their existence ? Do they curtail her 
liberty to any extent ? Not at all, for her love is her 
law. Rising now into the realm of duty, we see that she 
owes to them the preparation of their food, the care of 
their persons and clothing, ministry in sickness, home 
education, sympathy in trouble, discipline for disobedi- 
ence, and all motherly offices. Now do these duties 
come to her simply as duties ? Does she feed and 
clothe her children, minister to them in sickness, edu- 
cate them and sympathize with them, from a sense of 
duty ? Ah, no ! In the domain of motherly duty, love 
is her law, and the performance of these duties is simply 
the natural outflow and expression of the love which she 
bears to her children. The stronger and the more per- 
fect her love, the smaller the restraints of law and the 
constraints of duty ; and when this love becomes, as in 
many instances it does become, an all-absorbing pas- 
sion, law and duty, in connection with her relations to 
her children, are things she never even dreams of. Her 
neighbors may call her a slave to her children, but she 
knows that she is in the enjoyment of a most delicious 
liberty — the liberty to do precisely those things which 



Perfect Liberty. 41 

please her most, inspired by a love that knows neither 
law nor duty. 

Suppose now that this mother die and a step-mother 
take her place. She may find among those children 
one so intractable and ungrateful that it would be a 
pleasure to her to turn it out of the house, but the law 
prevents. She then looks upon law as a restraint upon 
her liberty. But, in the place she has taken, she per- 
ceives that she owes duties to this family of children. 
She has an intellectual appreciation of the duties of her 
office, and undertakes to perform them. We will sup- 
pose that, from a simple sense of duty, she devotes 
herself to them as thoroughly as their own mother 
did before her. Under circumstances like these, duty 
would become a burden and a bondage. What was 
almost a divine liberty with the mother, becomes to the 
step-mother a crushing slavery. Conscientious but un- 
loving, she wears out a life of servitude to duty, and of 
course is most unhappy. 

It seems to me that these simple illustrations throw 
unmistakable light upon this whole subject. Christian 
love knows no such thing as slavery to law and to duty. 
The higher, the purer, and the stronger this love, the 
more do law and duty disappear, until, finally, they are 
unthought of, and the soul finds itself free — without a 
single shackle on its faculties, or a single restraint upon 
its movements. It acts within the lines of law, because 
its highest life naturally lives within them. Those lines 



42 Gold- Foil. 

are not described to it by a foreign or superior power ; 
they are defined by itself, in the full exercise of liberty 
born of love. It performs its duties because they lie in 
the path of its natural action. Neither restraint nor con- 
straint is felt, because, in the perfect liberty which is born 
of perfect love, it chooses to do, and does, that against 
which there is no law, and that in which abides all duty. 
So, if there be any struggling, sorrowful Christians, 
who are in the habit of taking up daily crosses, and 
doing unpleasant things, because, and simply because, 
they deem them to be duties, I have only this to say to 
them — that no act of theirs, performed simply because 
it is a duty, and performed with a sense of constraint 
that does not come from genuine love to God and man, 
can be looked back upon as a Christian duty worthily 
performed. As a moral act, conscientiously performed, 
there is in it a quality of goodness, but it is the work 
of a slave and not of a freeman. My servant may bring 
me a glass of water because I command her to bring it, 
and in so doing she will perform her duty, though it may 
be to her a task. If, when I enter my house, heated 
with walking and labor, my daughter bring me a glass 
of water, from love of me and sympathy for me, the 
character of the act is essentially changed. Her act is 
in the domain of perfect liberty, and had its birth in 
love. The two acts are identical, they cost the same 
amount of labor, both were performed in the discharge 
of a duty, yet the dullest intellect will apprehend a dif- 



Perfect Liberty. 43 

ference in their quality that elevates one almost infi- 
nitely above the other. 

There is no release in this world, or the next, from 
the restraints of law and the constraints of duty, save in 
love. Duty, especially out of the domain of love, is the 
veriest slavery of the world. The cry of the soul is for 
freedom. It longs for liberty, from the date of its first 
conscious moments. This natural longing is not born 
of depravity, but points with an unerring finger to a 
source of satisfaction existing somewhere for it in the 
universe of God. Law surrounds us while we are low, 
and we beat our heads against it and are baffled. A 
sense of duty takes us upon a higher plane — upon the 
plane of conscience, or an insufficient Christian love, and 
forces us to the performance of tasks which are hard and 
ungrateful. We ask for something better than this, and 
we get it when love fills us full of itself, and absorbs us 
into itself. What the Christian world wants is more 
love. Love rules his kingdom without a sword. There 
is no compulsion here. Love makes labor light. There 
are no unpleasant tasks here — at least, none whose 
unpleasantness destroys a divine pleasure in their per- 
formance. A man who feels that his religion is a sla- 
very, has not begun to comprehend the real nature 
of religion. That heart of his is still selfish. There 
is lacking the elevation, the entire consecration which 
alone can introduce him into that glorious liberty which 
the real sons of God enjoy. 



44 Gold-Foil. 

Ah, this liberty! How little have we of it in the 
world ! How we go groping, and mourning, and wailing 
through the darkness — walled in by law, goaded on by 
a sense of duty, and filled with the fears which perfect 
love casts out, when all the while there hang above us 
crowns within our reach, which, grasped, would make 
us kings ! Oh, it is very pitiful — this sight of Christian 
slaves ! Most pitiful, however, does it become, when 
we comprehend the fact that in this slavery many think 
they find the evidence of their Christianity. They bear 
burdens throughout their lives which wear into their 
very hearts, and think there is merit in it. Mortifica- 
tion, penance, bondage — are these the rewards of Chris- 
tianity ? Crosses, servitude, fear — are these the cre- 
dentials of love ? Out upon such mischievous error ! 
Into it, God forbid that soul of yours or mine should be 
drawn ! What great wonder is it that the soul is fright- 
ened away from such bondage as this ? 

No : perfect love holds the secret of the world's per- 
fect liberty. It is only this that releases us from law, 
and discharges us from duty, by making law the defini- 
tion of our life, and duty the natural, free outflow of our 
souls. Into this liberty Divine Love would lead us. Up 
to it would Heaven lift us. In it only is the perfection 
of Christian action. In it only can the soul find that 
freedom for which it has yearned through all its history. 
In it only lives an exuberant, boundless joy — joy in trib- 
ulation, joy in labor, joy in everything except that world 



Perfect Liberty. 45 

of slavish life that lives below it, bound to law and duty, 
to forms and creeds, to mortifications and penances, 
selfishness and sin. We shall know more about it up 
yonder. 



CHAPTER V. 

TRUST, AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 

"He who sows his land trusts in God." 
• " Trust everybody, but thyself most." 
" Trusting often makes fidelity." 
"If you would make a thief honest, trust him." 
"Trust thyself only, and another shall not betray thee." 

IT is sadly humiliating to think that more than a moiety 
of the world's trust in God is blind and unconscious. 
We trust in lines of precedent, and links of succession, 
and laws and principles. Very little of our trust is im- 
mediate. We sow our seed, and bury it in the earth, 
trusting that the germs we deposit will proceed to the 
beautiful unfolding of the harvest ; yet our trust is in 
the seed, the season, the sun, the soil — any thing but 
the God who instituted vegetable life, and all its laws 
and conditions. We are compelled to trust something, 
however, or we should die. Trust lies at the basis of 
every scheme of human life, and is the corner-stone of 
the temple of human happiness. If our trust fail to 
reach God directly, or if it fail to become transitive 
through nature into God, then it must abide in nature. 



Trust, and zvhat comes of it* 47 

It must live somewhere. We trust to some power or 
principle for the rising and the setting of the sun, for the 
sleep of winter, the resurrection of spring, the fructi- 
fication of summer, and the fruition of autumn. We 
know nothing of the future. We do not know that rain 
will fall — that seed-time and harvest will come ; but we 
trust that they will ; and this trust is so strong that, 
practically, it answers the purposes of fore -knowledge 
— it brings the feeling of security to the heart, and fur- 
nishes a basis for the plans necessary to perpetuate the 
life of the race. But we trust no further than we can 
see. Something must come between us and the Being 
upon whom we rely for every thing, before our hearts 
will poise themselves in trust. We trust nature, our fel- 
lows, and even God Himself, because we are obliged to 
do so. We would trust nobody and no thing if we could 
get along without it. We trust nature because, if we 
did not, we could not live. We trust God, strongly or 
feebly, because we know that in the life beyond this 
our destiny is in His hands. We trust our fellows, be- 
cause it is necessary to have one heart, at least, in whose 
confidence we may dwell. A man who is poor in trust 
is the poorest of all God's creatures. 

Now why this strange reluctance in trusting ? Why 
should it be necessary to force us into trusting when, 
without it, we cannot be happy for a moment — when, 
without it, we cannot institute a single plan relating to 
the future ? I think that the lack of trust in God and 



48 Gold-Foil 

our universal distrust of men grow out of a sense of our 
own ill desert and our own untrustworthiness. I find 
always those who are the richest in trust toward God 
and man the most trustworthy in themselves. I find 
those who go about with open hearts and honest lips, 
with no intent of evil toward others, those who trust men 
the most invariably. The child trusts because it finds 
no reason in itself why it should not. The charity that 
thinketh no evil trusts in God and trusts in men. The 
heart that knows itself to be false, trusts neither in God 
nor men. So, naturally, and after the common order 
of things, we shall get no more trust in this world until 
the world which must bring the grace into exercise is 
better. As this world grows better, the trust which 
forms the basis of its happiness will grow broader, a 
more luxuriant social life will spring up, and the great 
brotherhood of humanity will not only come nearer to- 
gether, but they will be blended and fused in an all- 
pervading sympathy. 

Naturally, and after the common order of things, I 
say, the world will have no more voluntary trust until it 
is better ; but trusting as a policy may be instituted for 
the purpose of making the world better, and it is this 
policy that I propose to make the subject of this article. 
A child that comes to me in danger, or sorrow, or per- 
plexity, and takes my hand, and looks into my eyes, and 
utters its wants in trust, begets in me trustworthiness, 
on the instant. It rouses into action all within me that 



Trusty and what comes of it. 49 

is good and honorable and true, and I cannot betray that 
trust without a loss of self-respect that will make me con- 
temn myself for a life -time. A maiden who comes into 
my presence in guileless trust, and in any way places 
her destiny in my hands, would shame me into trust- 
worthiness were my heart teeming with impurity. Even 
the timid hare, hunted from field to field, and hard be- 
set by the baying hounds, would find a protector in me 
should it leap desperately into my arms, and lay the 
tumult of its frightened heart upon the generous beat- 
ings of mine. The child, the maiden, the hare would 
beget in me trustworthiness, simply by trusting me. 
They would make me considerate and generous and 
honorable. I should despise myself were I to harm 
either by a thought. Such beings, under such circum- 
stances, would come to me as missionaries, bearing one 
of the very sweetest of the lessons of Christ. 

These illustrations seem to me to be pregnant with 
meaning, and instinct with illumination. They open to 
me the door of a policy, and reveal to me a ministry 
equally beautiful and beneficent, yet they involve no 
new law, and spring out of no newly discovered princi^ 
pie. All seed produces after its kind. If I plant corn, 
I reap corn ; if I plant lilies, I gather lilies. Like pro- 
duces like in the spiritual no less than in the material 
universe. Love begets love ; anger begets anger. If I 
sow to the wind, I reap the whirlwind. So, if I sow 
trust, I reap trust. The soil will honor the seed. Of 
3 



50 Gold-Foil. 

course, I state this as a general fact. There are souls 
as well as soils that will produce nothing good. There 
are souls as well as soils so sour, so rank with pollution, • 
or so poor, that nothing but weeds will grow in them ; 
but, as a general fact, in the worlds of mind and matter, 
the soil will honor the seed. Wherever there may be 
the slightest promise of return, we are to sow our trust. 

Now what is the aspect that life presents to us ? Is 
it not *that of universal distrust ? Nay, has not distrust 
become an instituted thing, that has taken form in 
maxims and proverbs ? There is hardly a language 
that does not contain a proverb which says in words, or 
effect, " Trust thyself only, and another shall not be- 
tray thee " — a proverb that bears the very singe and 
scent of hell. Thus distrust is not only a fact, but it 
has become a policy. It is inculcated by universal 
human society ; and as like produces like, distrust is 
everywhere reaped, because it is everywhere sown. We 
take no pains to nurse honor by trusting it. We trust 
interest and appetite, and every thing base and selfish 
in a man, quicker than we do any good quality in him. 
We trust that which is beast-like in men, and refuse to 
trust that which is godlike. We decline to bring honor 
into exencise, and honor dwindles under the treatment. 

One of the most notable illustrations of the evil con- 
sequences of distrust is that afforded by the relative 
positions of the sexes. The institutions of society and 
education, so far as they have to do with these rela- 



Trust, and what comes of it. 51 

tions, are established on the theory that men and 
women are not to be trusted together. Our colleges 
and schools, and all the institutions and usages of social 
life, recognize, as a cardinal fact, the untrustworthiness 
of men and women. They proceed upon the theory 
that men will betray if they can, and that virtue in 
women is only a name. Wherever this theory is pushed 
to its extreme, there we shall find always the qualities 
suspected. I suppose that there is no country in the 
world where young women are guarded with such care 
as in France. The very extreme of punctilio is ex- 
acted on the part of parents, and a woman is hardly 
allowed to see her lover alone until after her marriage. 
The duenna is her companion in society, as constantly 
as her own shadow. Yet in France, as in all countries 
where this extreme of caution is observed — where this 
distrust takes its severest form — is female virtue the 
rarest, and masculine licentiousness the most universal. 
Virtue shrinks and refuses to live in the atmosphere of 
universal distrust. Manly purity and honor find no use 
for themselves where they are neither believed in nor 
appealed to. This distrust of the sexes, so persistently 
and powerfully inculcated by society, breeds untrust- 
worthiness, and sows broadcast the seeds of impurity. 
It always has been so, and it always will be so. There 
is no remedy but in releasing society from the control 
of men and women who are sadly conscious of their 
own weaknesses, and in the assumption of the functions 



52 Gold-Foil. 

of education by men who are something more than 
saintly and suspicious grandmothers. 

Just look at this thing ! Here are two sexes, intended 
by Heaven to be the companions of each other — in- 
tended to ennoble and purify each other, to enter into 
the most intimate, endearing and permanent relations 
with each other, to draw from each other the very 
choicest of their earthly happiness — the two hemi- 
spheres of humanity necessary to the perfection and 
beauty of the great sphere of life — yet trained from the 
first dawning of their regard for one another to believe 
in their mutual untrustworthiness ! They are seated on 
different sides of the room where they meet to worship 
a common Lord. They are caged in boarding-schools, 
kept from association by all possible means, kept as 
much as may be from all knowledge of each other, 
trained to impurity of imagination by the very restraints 
which are put upon them to keep them pure. I believe 
in manly honor and womanly virtue ; and that the more 
we trust them the more we develop them. I believe 
that an honor never developed by the trust of pure and 
womanly hearts, and a virtue that has always lived in 
the poisonous atmosphere of distrust, and has never 
come out to stand alone in its own sweet self-assertion, 
are as good as brown paper, and only better in excep- 
tional instances. I believe that all that is needed in 
America to make our nation as untrustworthy as the 
French, is to draw the reins still tighter, build the walls 



Trust, and what comes of it, 53 

of partition still higher, and come up, or down, to the 
policy of ignoring or contemning any power of virtue in 
men and women that will keep them from sin. 

Now let us take a very simple and suggestive illus- 
tration of this principle of trust as it bears upon our 
general life. We meet, passing through the streets of 
the city or town where we live, a stranger. He ap- 
proaches us, and informs us that he has lost his way, 
and inquires the direction of his lodgings. He places 
himself, in his ignorance and helplessness, in our hands. 
He trusts the direction of his footsteps entirely to us. 
We can deceive him if we will ; but we are upon our 
honor at once. We are trusted, and our hearts spring 
naturally and instantaneously up to honor that trust. 
Now there is not one man in one hundred, in any class 
of society, who will not honor so simple a trust, and 
who does not feel that he is happier and better in con- 
sequence of honoring it. It has been my lot to receive 
as polite and hearty offices of kindness from entire 
strangers, under circumstances like these, as I have 
ever received in my life. To my mind, this little illus- 
tration denotes the general trustworthiness of men, and 
shows to me that if I approach my fellows in a simple, 
honest trust, they will deal fairly with me. Perhaps I 
should except itinerant dealers in crockery and glass- 
ware, professional Peter Funks, Irishmen who work by 
the job, and others whose sole living it is to get large 
returns for insignificant investments. But I do not pro- 



54 Gold-Foil, 

pose to deal with these. They are not my fellows, and 
I have no relations with them. 

Everything good in a man thrives best when properly 
recognized. Men do about what we expect of them. 
If a man with whom I have business relations perceive 
that I expect him to cheat me if he can, he will com- 
monly do it. If, on the contrary, he see that I place 
implicit faith in his honor — that I trust him — every 
thing good in the man springs into life, and demands 
that that trust be honored. The sordid elements of his 
character may possibly triumph, but they will triumph 
by a struggle which will weaken them. If I am unwill- 
ing to trust my son or my daughter out of my sight, I 
may reasonably expect to plant and nourish in them 
precisely those qualities which would make it dangerous 
for them to be out of my sight. If I refuse to trust the 
word of an honest man, I may reasonably expect that 
with me, at least, he will break faith at the earliest op- 
portunity. If I place all men and women at arm's 
length, in the fear that one of them will be treacherous 
to me, I place myself beyond the desert of good treat- 
ment at their hands — beyond the reach of their sym- 
pathies and their good-will — in short, I insult them, 
and voluntarily institute an antagonism which naturally 
breeds mischief in them toward me. 

So I advocate the policy of universal faith, as an 
essential condition of universal faithfulness — of univer- 
sal trust as a pre-requisite to universal trustworthiness. 



Trusty and what comes of it. 55 

The world does not half comprehend the principle of 
overcoming evil with good, but clings to the infernal 
policy of overcoming evil with evil. I know of no 
power in the world but good, with which to overcome 
evil ; and when I see on every side exhibitions of a lack 
of personal honor, I know that I can foster the honor 
that remains in no way except by recognizing it and 
calling it into development by direct practical appeal. 
One of the most remarkable and suggestive passages 
in the Bible, as it seems to me, is this : — " If we love 
not our brother whom we have seen, how can we love 
God, whom we have not seen ? " Many will fail to see 
how such a conclusion naturally follows from such 
a premise ; but a little consideration will show that 
by the amount in which godlike elements enter into 
humanity, do human elements enter into divinity ; and 
that if we fail to recognize and love these elements as 
they are exhibited to us in human life, we shall neces- 
sarily fail to recognize and love the same elements in a 
Being removed beyond our vision, and, save as we see 
Him in humanity, beyond our comprehension. Now 
this thing is just as true of trust as it is of love. If we 
fail to trust that which is good in our brother, whom 
we have seen, how can we trust the same qualities in a 
Being whom we have not seen, and of whom we know 
nothing definitely, save as He has exhibited Himself 
to us in human life ? I know of nothing that antago- 
nizes more directly with trust in the divine Being than 



$6 Gold-Foil. 

the attitude and habit of distrust which we maintain 
toward our fellows. I believe that history and obser- 
vation will prove the entire soundness of this principle, 
and will show that every soul that sits apart from its 
brotherhood, in settled distrust, is devoid of faith and 
trust in the Being from whom it sprang. I believe that 
God has laid the way to trust in Himself through hu- 
manity, and that those who refuse to walk in it will 
fail to find a short cut to Him. 

Trust in man, then, is not only the true policy for 
the development of trustworthiness in man, but it is 
the legitimate path over which we must walk to the at- 
tainment of a secure and happy piety. Let us then 
throw the door of our hearts wide open. Let us give 
our hand to our brother in honest trust. One may 
possibly abuse our trust ; but ninety-nine in one hundred 
will not ; and we cannot afford to sacrifice so great a 
good for ourselves, and the great mass of men, to save 
our confidence from a single betrayal. We do not re- 
fuse our dirty pence to a beggar who appears to be in 
need, because he may abuse the gift ; but we say that 
it is better that ten betray our trust than that one inno- 
cent man should suffer want. When the universal heart 
longs for trust, delights in trust, is made better by trust, 
and needs trust, we should give so cheap a thing freely. 
Especially should we do it when we can legitimately 
apply those precious words to the gift — " Inasmuch as 
ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE IDEAL CHRIST. 
"Like master, like man." 

IDEALS are the world's masters. That self which 
thinks, and judges, and knows, is always in ad- 
vance of that other self which wills, and acts, and lives ; 
and all the spare capital of the soul — all that is not ap- 
propriated to the daily uses and experiences of its life — 
is invested in ideals — projected into forms where it may 
be kept, contemplated, and worshipped, as the insti- 
tuted sources of its inspiration. That which is godlike 
in men goes ahead of them into some form of their own 
choosing, to beckon them toward perfection and to lead 
them toward God. Wherever our affections cluster, 
there springs up an ideal character. Our ideal may not 
be up to the character which serves as its nucleus, nor 
identical with it in any way, but, wherever God sees 
our love concentrating, He plants himself in the form 
of our noblest conceptions of honor, purity, and good- 
ness, that we may be attracted toward Him. We fol- 
low the lines of the flight of our conceptions as the bee- 



58 Gold- Foil. 

hunters follow the flight of bees, for a little distance, and 
then we pause and let them feed again at our hearts, 
and follow their flight again, and repeat the process till, 
deep in the heart of the tree of life, we discover the 
store-house of the Divine Sweetness. God uses the 
ideals that we build as the media through which He 
inspires us. He employs them as agents by which to 
mould our character, so that if we could know the pre- 
cise form of a man's ideals, we could know the influences 
at work upon him for his elevation and purification. 

To illustrate the fact that our ideals are framed upon 
the objects of our affections, or the subjects of our no- 
bler sentiments, and that all their inspiring influences 
come to us on the lines of these affections and senti- 
ments, let me suppose an instance of the passion of 
love between the sexes. A man makes the acquaintance 
of a woman who inspires him with love. His reason, 
and all his previous knowledge of women, tell him that 
she is imperfect. His friends may tell him that she has 
a bad temper, that she is weak, that she is vain. But 
his love is fixed, and is as strong as a passion can be 
that lives in his nature ; and his imagination springs to 
clothe her with all human perfections. Her movements 
are poetry, her eye is heaven, her voice is music, and 
her presence that of an angel. To him she is a pure, 
exalted, and beautiful being, and he worships the quali- 
ties with which he invests her. Now it is very evident 
that he does not love the woman herself, but his ideal — 



The Ideal Christ. 59 

the creation of his own mind — the embodiment of his 
highest ideas of womanly loveliness. 

Mark how this ideal becomes an active power upon 
him — how it works a miracle upon him. Impure 
thoughts are banished from his mind, all inferior and 
unworthy aims are forsaken, he withdraws himself from 
degrading associations, and becomes ennobled and puri- 
fied. This character, made by himself, transforms him. 
He has made, for the time, a divinity ; and this divinity 
becomes his leader, strengthener, purifier, and inspirer. 
The God within us seeks for incarnation no less than 
the God without us ; and the philosophical basis of the 
influence upon men of the incarnation of God's ideal is 
identical with that of the influence of their own incar- 
nated ideals. 

From this illustration I proceed to the proposition 
that it does not matter what legitimate passion or senti- 
ment may be called out with relation to an object, the 
result will always be the same in kind, if not in degree. 
We may admire, revere, esteem, love, and in many 
ways enjoy, through the exhibition to us of an infinite 
variety of characteristics ; and our admiration, rever- 
ence, esteem, love, and enjoyment, become the basis 
of the structure of ideals which shape the model of our 
own character, and inspire the life which it evolves. 
Idolatry is but the enthronement of the ideals of men 
who are ignorant of the true God. These ideals are 
formed of the highest qualities and conceptions of those 



60 Gold-Foil. 

who make them. They may be very low, but they 
shape the life of the people that produce them. Mari- 
olatry is the worship of a very pure ideal, and the 
tributes offered to the multiplied saints of the Roman 
calendar are all paid to the incarnations of the noblest 
conceptions of their devotees. The marvellous gift of 
song possessed by Jenny Lind makes her very admira- 
ble to us ; so we clothe her with the loveliest attributes, 
and make her a goddess. The real power of Washing- 
ton upon the American mind is exerted, not by his sim- 
ple self, but by his character, modified, magnified, ex- 
alted, harmonized, and enthroned by that mind, as the 
impersonation of its highest conception of patriotism. 
In the American imagination, he is a demi-god — a grand 
Colossus — before whose august shade we stand as pig- 
mies. "All history is a lie," simply because no man 
can write it without being attracted to characters in 
such a way as to make ideals of them, and thus to throw 
all the facts connected with them out of their legitimate 
relations. 

I repeat the statement, that ideals are the world's 
masters. They order our life, they dictate the form of 
our history, they are the very essence of poetry, and the 
staple of all worthy fiction. Our affections choose an 
object, and straightway our imaginations lift it into 
apotheosis. We garner in it that which is best in our 
thought, and it becomes a power upon us for the eleva- 
tion of our life. 



The Ideal Christ. 61 

I have attempted thus far only to reveal and illustrate 
one of the most beautiful laws of mental action and re- 
action with which I am acquainted ; and if my reader is 
as much interested in it as I am, he will follow me into 
a consideration of its bearings upon Christianity. I do 
not moot the question of the nature of the founder of 
Christianity, — that is, I do not say that Christ was God, 
or was not God, — but I say, what few will dispute, that 
he was God's incarnated ideal of a man — that Christ was 
all of God and his attributes that could be put into a 
man. It follows, that unless we can fully comprehend 
God's ideal, the Christ that we hold is our own ideal ; 
and his power upon us is measured and described by the 
character of our ideal. "What think ye of Christ ?" 
The answer to this great question, addressed to a soul 
or a sect, defines the type of Christianity possessed by 
sush a soul or sect. He is what He is, a complete and 
definite character, but what we think of Him — our ideal 
of Him — determines the exact measure and kind of 
power with which He inspires us, and the quality and 
extent of the development He works in us. 

It does not matter to this discussion whether Christ be 
what we believe Him to be, or a myth. If we admit 
that He is the first fact in the Christian system of relig- 
ion, and the primary source of all inspiration to Christian 
movement and progress, it will follow that every soul 
and every sect must possess the highest possible idea of 
Christ before it can reach its highest point of develop- 



62 Gold-Foil. 

ment and its highest style of Christian life. According 
to our ideal of Christ — in the measure by which we in- 
vest Him with great attributes and authority — does He 
become to us an inspiring force. A person who thinks 
that Christ was only a good man, with frailties like other 
men, — an individual who lived a very pure life — a re- 
former — can possess only a very shallow Christian 
piety, because he can find in his ideal of Christ no in- 
spiration to a piety more profound. A man who thinks 
the grand characteristics of Christ were meekness, self- 
denial, and patience under injury, without apprehending 
the other side of His character, will be a mean and ab- 
ject man. A man who thinks that there was nothing in 
Christ but love — that contempt of all meanness, supreme 
reverence for justice, displeasure with all sin, and hatred 
of all cruelty and oppression, had no place in Him, will 
expend his sympathy on prisoners, and build palaces 
for convicts, and circulate petitions for the abrogation 
of death penalties. 

If the doctrine I have advanced be sound, it is not 
necessary to refer to history to prove that the progress 
of Christianity has depended in all the past (nor is the 
gift of prophecy requisite to the assertion that it will 
depend in all the future) upon the prevalent ideal of 
Christ. The stream cannot rise higher than its fountain. 
Christ, as the inspirer of Christian life, is to the Chris- 
tian world what that world makes Him to be. He must 
keep forever in advance of us, or there is no such thing 



The Ideal Christ. 63 

as an infinite Christian progression. If there shall ever 
arrive a point in the history of any soul when its con- 
ception of Christ will cease to be higher than its own 
life, then that soul will have exhausted Christianity, 
and must stand still. If the history and being of Christ, 
as delineated by the Evangelists, forbid the world to 
form of Him the highest ideal which it is possible for it 
to conceive (which, of course, I do not believe), then 
those delineations must ultimately, by a philosophical 
necessity, become an insurmountable obstacle to the 
development of the highest style of Christianity of which 
the world is capable. I believe there is no proposition 
in moral philosophy more clearly demonstrable than 
this, and I hold myself in no way responsible for the 
conclusions to which it leads. 

I believe in the proverb that any ? religion is better 
than no religion, because every man's conception of 
goodness and duty is an advance of his character ; and 
when this conception is embodied in an object of wor- 
ship, it becomes an elevating power upon his life that 
makes him capable of a certain degree of civilization. 
All the ideals of all ages have been developed in the di- 
rection of the perfect man — toward God's ideal. The 
shadowy gods that were grouped about Olympus were 
voiceless echoes of poor hearts crying after this perfect 
man. Hugh Miller, the inspired apostle of Science, 
found the rudiments of Christ in the rocks, and may we 
not find them in the souls of men? He found Jesus 



64 Gold-FoiL 

Christ in every lamina of the earths crust ; and as, with 
faith in his heart and the iron in his hand, he toiled among 
the old red sandstone, he saw the fossil flora of his own 
Scotch hills tipped with tongues of flame and the fauna 
rigid with the stress of prophecy. It was as if the blood 
of Calvary had stained and informed with meaning the 
insensate mass in which he wrought ; or as if he were, 
with a divine instinct, hewing away the rock from the 
door of the sepulchre where the ages had laid his Lord. 
With a vision that was too wonderful and too glorious 
for the protracted entertainment of his mighty brain, 
he saw the varied forms of life climbing through the 
rugged centuries, and leaping from creation to creation, 
until they took resolution in the union of matter and 
spirit in man. But science with a pining heart behind 
it was not satisfied even then. Not until the complex 
creature man was united with God was the chain com- 
plete. Then, with the last link fastened to The Throne, 
the grand riddle of " the Lamb slain from the founda- 
tion of the world " swung clear in the sight of angels and 
of men. So, to the delver in the stratified history of the 
race, do the dead ideals point toward and prophesy the 
advent and the character of the divine man. 

Any religion is better than no religion, because there 
exists in the ideal which inspires it a rudiment of Christ, 
and there is nothing in my religion that tends in any 
direct and legitimate way to the good of the soul which 
entertains it that is not a fraction or fragment of Chris- 



The Ideal Christ. 65 

tianity. Now it is manifest that every soul which gives 
in its allegiance to a fragmentary ideal of Christ stands 
really, for the time, upon the plane of paganism. In 
the degree in which Plato's ideal man, or ideal god, 
was greater than any given Christian's ideal Christ, 
was his paganism better than that Christian's Christi- 
anity—better in its essence, and better in its practical 
power upon life. The moment that a mind definitely 
circumscribes, measures, weighs, and comprehends its 
Christ, it limits its own Christian development, by fix- 
ing a point beyond which no Christian inspiration will 
come to it. The moment we cease to grow "in the 
knowledge of Jesus Christ," because there is no more 
to know of him, God's ideal will become inferior to our 
ideal, for, reaching it, we shall immediately conceive an 
ideal beyond it, in accordance with that law of progress 
which always keeps our conceptions of goodness and 
greatness in advance of our life. So I ask the ques- 
tion : will God's Christ answer the purpose of eternal 
progress, or will the time come when we shall be 
obliged to make a Christ for ourselves ? I let every 
man answer this question in his own way. 

This leads me to a thought which I consider of the 
highest practical importance to the Christian world, and 
which I should be glad to develop more fully than my 
space will allow. If the view which I have presented of 
the law of progress in Christian life be correct, then 
theology is a progressive science, and there is, and 



66 Gold-Foil. 

there can be, no standard of belief and faith good for 
all ages. As our ideal of Christ grows toward, or into, 
God's ideal, will that ideal change its relation to all the 
great facts of theology, as they are now comprehended 
by theologians. The theological systems of men and 
schools of men are determined always by the character 
of their ideal Christ, the central fact of the Christian 
system. All the other facts arrange themselves around 
this ideal, and in harmony with it. Thus, as our 
ideal advances, gathering new glory and greatness and 
goodness, will certain doctrines which we now consider 
essential recede into insignificance, and others now 
scarcely insisted upon spring into prominence, and 
others still, now unknown, will be developed. Preach- 
ers and professors, churches and synods, may protest 
against innovations, but they must come by necessity, if 
there be any genuine Christian progress. A prescriptive 
standard of faith in Christianity — a system of everlasting 
progress — must forever remain an officious and sacrile- 
gious intermeddling with the grand fundamental law of 
Christianity. 

There is a time coming when all the sects which 
now divide Christendom will be melted into one. 
Nothing but the blotting out of Christianity can hinder 
it. My Presbyterian friend has his fragmentary ideal 
of Christ, my Episcopal friend another, my Roman 
Catholic friend another, and so on, through Baptists, 
Methodists, Universalists, and all the rest ; but as the 



The Ideal Christ. 67 

Christian world's ideal of Christ advances, and he is 
apprehended in something of the fulness of his being 
and character, will the world's theologies approach 
each other. They must do so, and they are doing so 
to-day. The best evidence in the world that Christian- 
ity is advancing is found in the fact that the walls be- 
tween the sects are growing weaker, or falling in ruins. 
When they all come up to the point of any thing like 
a just idea of the sun in the centre of their systems, 
they will find that there is no difference between them. 
Therefore, let our ideal be kept well in advance, and 
always in advance ; and let that ideal be the law of a 
man's theology. If my neighbor's ideal of Christ be 
better than mine, then, not only his life, but his system 
of theology, will be better than mine ; and God forbid 
that I should curb him, or try to impose upon him my 
ideal and my theology. Ah, these Procrustean pre- 
scripts of belief — what unspeakably useless things are 
they! 



CHAPTER VII. 

PROVIDENCE. 

" Man proposes and God disposes." 
" Saint cannot, if God will not.'* 

"Nothing is lost on a journey by stopping to pray or to feed your 
horse." 

"God puts a good root in the little pig's way." 

" God gives every bird its food, but does not throw it into the nest." 

"He that is at sea has not the wind in his hands." 

THE progress of modern science, the opulence of 
modern invention, and the splendor of modern 
achievement in the arts, are themes of ceaseless glory- 
ing and gratulation. I rejoice with the gladdest, and 
glory with the proudest ; yet I feel that the world 
around me and the world within me have lost some- 
thing, even more precious than they have gained — not 
irrecoverably, but, for the time, practically. The more 
the knowledge of material things has crowded in upon 
the apprehension of the world — the more the world has 
learned of the laws of matter, and the more stupendous 
the results it has achieved by laying those laws under 
tribute — the more from a large class of minds has faith 



Providence. 69 

retired, and Providence become a meaningless name. 
We drive toward materialism. We have become prac- 
tical believers in necessity. Everything is controlled 
by law. The machine has been wound up, the being 
who made and set it in operation has retired, and all 
that we can do is to fall into our place, and be borne 
on, careful only that no cog-wheel catch our fingers, and 
no weight descend upon our heads. 

It is not only the irreligious world that disbelieves in 
Providence. I am inclined to think that there are 
Christians in large numbers who never dream cf re- 
ceiving blessings in answer to their prayers — Christians 
who would be absolutely startled with the thought that 
God had directly, and with special purpose, granted 
one of their petitions. God has come to be "counted 
out of the ring." Practically, we believe that He never 
interferes with the operation of one of His own laws — 
that no influence, under the control of His will, acting 
from daily and momently arising motives, can, or does, 
act with supreme power upon the chain of cause and 
effect established at the creation of the universe. Too 
much, even in the Christian imagination, God is a pris- 
oner, shut up within the walls of His own laws — a Being 
who has farmed out the universe to the great firm of 
Laws and Principles, and is quietly waiting, with noth- 
ing to do, and no power to do anything, till the lease 
expire. The man who declared that there was no use 
in praying for rain so long as the wind was in the north, 



yo Gold-Foil. 

illustrates the essential position of every nine minds in 
ten throughout Christendom. This, I know, is a sweep- 
ing statement, and I shall be very glad to be convicted 
of its falsehood. There is, doubtless, a strife constantly 
going on in a great multitude of minds to escape from 
the clutch of laws, and to find a Father's embrace, yet 
the majority of them " take things as they come," and, 
at most, expect God to do only those things for them 
which are outside the strict domain of natural law. 
Law is God, practically — Law, a thing of God, an in- 
stitution born of Him, is put in His place, and He is 
shut out behind it. Thus the world is turned into 
a great mill, established on certain principles for the 
grinding out of certain results ; and into the hopper all 
this great aggregate of individuals is poured like grain 
to be ground. 

I will not say that the absorption of the modern mind 
in scientific studies and the production of great mate- 
rial results is entirely responsible for this reduction of 
the universe to essential orphanage, but its tendency, 
joined to the natural gravitation of our appetites and 
passions, has had the decisive power to sink us in that 
direction. To reveal this tendency to those in whom it 
unconsciously exists, and to counteract it so far as I 
have any power, is the present aim. 

God is either supreme or subject. If subject, then I 
become an Atheist at once, for a subject God is no God. 
If He has passed over the line of my life to the control 



Providence. 7 1 

of a law, or a series of laws, then, so far as I am con- 
cerned, He is dethroned. If any law of the universe 
stands between me and the direct ministry of God to 
my wants and my worthy wishes and aspirations, then I 
may as well pray to my next door neighbor as to Him. 
Thus Providence is to me a question which involves the 
existence of a God. If law is a greater and a more pow- 
erful thing than He who established it, then, to me, He 
is practically of no account. I live and move and have 
my being in law, and not in Him. I sprang from law, 
I exist in law, and I am carried on by law I know not 
whither. If God pity me, He cannot help me. If He 
would save me, He cannot. Between Him and me His 
law places an impassable gulf, across which we may 
stretch our helpless hands toward each other to all 
eternity without avail. He is a prisoner, and I am a 
prisoner ; and I may legitimately pity His weakness as 
much as he pities mine. 

Again, God is either benevolent in His feelings to- 
ward each individual child in His universe, or He is 
utterly indifferent, or positively malicious. We look to 
Him as the author of all things — as the father of our 
spirits and the maker of our bodies, no more than as 
the author and founder of all law. If I decide in my 
mind that He has voluntarily placed it out of His power 
to help me, by instituting between me and Him a law 
which shuts Him from direct ministry to me, I decide 
in effect, that He is indifferent to me, or malicious to- 



72 Gold-FoiL 

ward me. When I decide this, I dethrone Him just as 
essentially as when I decide that He is subject to His 
own law, and helpless in regard to its operation ; for a 
God who is either indifferent or malicious has no claim 
upon my fealty or my affection. A God who does not 
love me has no claim upon my love. A God who vol- 
untarily puts it beyond His power to aid me, or do me 
good, puts it equally beyond His power to do me direct 
harm. He is, therefore, nothing to me. 

Thus, if there be not a God of Providence who minis- 
ters to my daily individual wants, and prescribes for me 
the discipline of my life — a God who hears me when I 
cry to Him, and holds immediate relations with every 
moment of my life, so far as I am concerned, there is 
no God at all. Ah ! but there is a God. Few are the 
men who doubt this, and they are not those who would 
be convinced of their error by argument of mine. All 
healthy souls recognize the existence of this Being, and 
recognize among His attributes utter supremacy and in- 
finite benevolence. Now the point that I make is this: 
that the moment we recognize God as supreme in power 
and infinitely good and loving toward all His intelligent 
creatures, that moment we admit the doctrine of univer- 
sal and special Providence. There is no God, and there 
can be none, who is not a God of Providence. It is 
only to such a God that we can pray. It is only such a 
God that can, by possibility, call out our affections, or 
hold us to allegiance. Every thing that passes under 



Providence. 73 

the name of religion becomes a mockery and a delusion 
the moment we place Him behind laws which, like 
prison-bars, restrain Him from all participation in 
human affairs. 

I know too well that in this thing I am not setting up 
and endeavoring to bring down a man of straw. I know 
many men who are professedly, at least, men of prayer, 
yet who declare in terms that the benefits of prayer are 
only to be looked for in the exercise of prayer. They 
attempt to explain the matter philosophically. There 
is something in the humble attitude of the soul before 
its Maker, incident to prayer — something in confession 
and the exercise of penitence — something in abstraction 
from worldly and impure thoughts — which, really, has 
the power to do great good, and in which reside all the 
benefits of prayer. While I recognize the immediate 
benefits of prayer as a mental and moral exercise, this 
partial and unworthy view of it is to me utterly con- 
temptible. A man on his knees talking to God as if He 
could help him, yet believing that he will not, or can- 
not, and praying for blessings which he has no reason 
to expect, is a sight to be pitied of angels and of men. 
If this be all of prayer, it is an insult to a man, either to 
ask or command him to pray. Low as human dignity 
is, it would be compromised, and, if in any degree sen- 
sitive, offended, by being forced into attitudes and 
language which are a sham and a lie, for the purpose 
of securing incidental results of good. 
4 



74 Gold-Foil. 

No, prayer is not a legitimate, it is not even a decent 
and dignified, exercise, unless offered to a God of Prov- 
idence who knows and is interested in all our affairs, is 
able to interfere with them and change their order 
through or above law, and is willing to do so, according 
as the motives in which our petitions are based show us 
ready for the reception of the blessings which we seek, 
and He in infinite paternal benevolence is ready to be- 
stow. Well, we are commanded to pray, throughout the 
Bible. We are promised answers to prayer, in no am- 
biguous language, throughout the Bible. We are taught 
after what manner to pray, by Him who spake as never 
man spake — Humanity's Great Teacher ; and to the 
truly faithful Christian heart this should forever settle 
the question of Providence. 

There is to me no thought more precious than that 
my Maker is my constant minister, direct and imme- 
diate. There is no thought that would sooner drive me 
mad than that I am in the iron grasp of laws which will 
work out their results within me and around me though 
they tear me in pieces, while the Maker of those laws 
and of me cannot help me, though I cry to him out of 
the depths of my helplessness and distress. A natural 
law is only one of the regular rules by which, for good 
purposes, God works. It exists as a rule only by His 
constant will ; and, in my opinion, drawn from every 
available analogy, He has a myriad irregular ways of 
reaching an end to one which is regular — ways constantly 



Providence. 75 

starting out from new impulses born of new motives 
within Him. The regular way of reaching New York or 
Washington is by a certain railroad, but I can reach 
either city by countless irregular ways, as circumstances 
or motives may dictate and direct. I may reach either 
city by other railroads less direct, yet having the same 
termination, as my will may decide ; and to confine the 
supreme will of the universe to such regular channels of 
action as we happen to be acquainted with, is to assume 
that that will is weaker than our own. 

I assume, that without a belief in a general and 
special Providence, no man who thinks at all upon the 
subject can be truly happy. We are all breakers of 
law — we are a race of law-breakers. The moment the 
mind swings loose from a belief in Providence, it 
plunges helpless and overwhelmed into a wild waste or 
penalties, from which there is and can be no extrication 
while existence endures. What has the history of the 
race been but that of law-breaking ? Yet in spite of 
this — in spite of a violation which has become the habit 
of the world — it lives, and, thank God ! progresses to- 
ward goodness. If law had been left alone of God's 
Providence to work out its own blind ends, there would 
not be a breathing man upon the face of the earth to- 
day. It is for the reason that we live and move and 
have our being in God, and not in law, that there rises 
to Heaven the smoke of a single city, or waves upon the 
hillside the burden of a single cultivated harvest. 



y6 Gold-Foil. 

Let no man be deceived by that subtlest of all in- 
fidelities which dethrones a God of Providence. The 
very hairs of our heads are numbered by Him, and not 
even the life of a sparrow that he has made is extin- 
guished without His notice. There is not an infant's 
wail, a sigh of anguish, a groan of pain, or a word of 
prayer, breathed in the humblest abode, that He does 
not hear. Over all our struggles and toils He stoops 
with a loving eye, and with a heart anxious that the 
discipline He has established for us may do us good. 
He knows all our doubts and fears ; He rejoices in all 
our worthy hopes and joys. When we kneel, He sees 
us ; when we pray, He hears. His presence envelopes 
us, His knowledge comprehends us, His power upholds 
us. All law and all being are alike dependent, moment 
by moment, upon Him for existence. The ultimate 
root of every flower that bends beneath its weight of 
dew is planted in His will. It is His breath that breaks 
the bosom of the sea into billows ; it is His smile that 
soothes it into rest. The blue sky that bends over us 
is but the visible image of His loving bosom, holding 
myriad worlds in the infinite depths of its tenderness. 
Ah, let it never be hidden to the eye of faith by the 
showers of blessings which come from it, borne on the 
wings of natural law ! 

I know of no skepticism more fatal to the develop- 
ment of religion in the heart than that which dethrones 
a God of Providence. In vain shall we look for a true 



Providence. J*] 

piety among those who, through absorption in scientific 
pursuits, or devotion to the details of natural law in me- 
chanical and similar callings, are brought to the deifi- 
cation of law. Law has no love, no pity, no mercy, no 
patience. Law has nothing in it to touch our sympa- 
thies, or call out our affections. If it have power in 
an indirect way to rouse within us a sense of responsi- 
bility for our conduct, it is only to curse us with the 
thought that it has no power to forgive. The idea that 
man can be truly religious, with a God voluntarily be- 
reft of power for good or evil, is simply absurd. We 
never find, and we never can find, true piety in a heart 
that does not so thoroughly believe in a God of Provi- 
dence that it can pray with an honest faith that God can 
grant its petition. 

It is well that we have law, that Ave understand it, 
and that we obey it. Law is essential to our highest 
liberty. It defines the bounds within which we may 
safely be allowed to exercise our wills, and work out 
our destiny. It draws the lines along which we may 
legitimately labor in the development of our powers. 
It reveals the relations which exist between material 
things and ourselves. Law is never to be ignored as an 
important part of the machinery by which its founder 
administers the world's great affairs, but we are never 
to shut God out of it, nor to shut him behind it. It is 
intended that we shall accomplish all through law that 
we can accomplish for ourselves — that we shall earn by 



78 Gold-Foil. 

the use of law all that we can earn for physical suste- 
nance, and our spiritual satisfaction. God gives every 
bird its food, but does not throw it into the nest. He 
does not unearth the good which the earth contains, but 
He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of get- 
ting it ourselves. 

The time has already come to multitudes of men 
when the providence which orders their lives is a de- 
monstrated reality. There is no tractable soul that 
has, by yielding to the indications of the supreme will, 
and obeying law, worked its way into the light, that 
does not recognize a wisdom and purpose in its life and 
history superior to, and independent of, itself, and the 
laws within and around it. In darkness or light, this 
demonstration will ultimately come to all. It shall be 
seen by every soul that the discipline of its life was 
chosen in infinite wisdom as that which was best calcu- 
lated to enlarge and ennoble it, whether it produce the 
desired result or not. To all souls emancipated from 
the clutches of necessity, and clinging with love and 
faith to the hand of the Great Dispenser, life becomes 
a great and glorious thing. They recognize every af- 
fliction, every reverse, every pain, as portions or fea- 
tures of an infinitely beneficent ministry. Every joy 
that visits them, every hope that cheers them, every 
good that they receive, is a renewed testimony of the 
love in which they are held by Him who has ordered 
their life in the past, and who is pledged by all His 



Providence. 79 

previous ministry to lead it to its divinest issues. It is 
to this height of human happiness that I would lead the 
blind, mistaken, discontented spirits that grope among 
laws as blind as themselves. Poor orphans ! Happy 
for you is it that your belief, or lack of belief, does not 
shut out Providence from you, nor hinder its constant 
efforts to bring you to its recognition ! 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DOES SENSUALITY PAY? 

"Cent, per cent, do we pay for every vicious indulgence." 

"If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away, but the good 

remains ; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away, but 

the evil remains." 

" Virtue and happiness are mother and daughter." 

LIFE would appear to be a very dangerous sea, judg- 
ing by the number of wrecks that strew its shores 
— more remarkably unsafe, perhaps, for pleasure yachts 
and such other fancy craft as may fail to maintain the 
proper relations between canvas and ballast. I know 
of no object of contemplation more sad than a human 
wreck. I can look upon death when it brings release to 
a happy soul, or even to a miserable body, with an 
emotion akin to satisfaction ; I can contemplate a great 
calamity, when it involves no stain of honor and no loss 
of character, with equanimity — content that the hand of 
Providence is in it, and that good must consequently 
come out of it ; I can read of great conflicts upon the 
battle-field, where the atmosphere is burdened by ex- 



Does Sensuality Pay? 81 

piring life, and blood flows in rivers, and rise from the 
picture inspired by its heroisms ; but I cannot look 
upon a human wreck, a lost life, a ruined man or wo- 
man, without being sick with horror, or saddened into 
an unspeakable pity. To think of youth's bright hopes 
and precious innocence — of love of truth and purity — of 
honor, and manhood, and womanhood — of genius and 
talent — of all goodly gifts of person and graces of mind 
— of all sweet affections and aspirations gone down — 
down into the abyss of perdition, blotted out or spoiled — 
ah, this is, by awful eminence, the horror of the world ! 
Yet visions of ruined men and women are not uncom- 
mon. We walk out into the world on some pleasant 
day, every thing fair and fresh around us, and, with 
health in our blood and peace in our hearts, we think 
how good and beautiful a thing life is ; yet we rarely 
walk far without meeting some one to whom all its good- 
ness and beauty are lost. We meet some wretch whose 
haggard face and feeble limbs and fetid breath betray 
the victim of debauchery, dying by his last foul disease. 
Behind him walks the bloated form of one who has sur- 
rendered his will to his appetite. His bloodshot, mean- 
ingless eyes, and heavy, staggering feet, give index to 
the curse which is upon him. We turn our eyes away 
from him with a shudder, but only to be greeted by a 
sight that makes us still more sad. We meet a form of 
beauty — a woman — but the wanton grace of her step, 
the artificial flush upon her cheek, the hollow eye and 
4* 



82 Gold- Foil. 

brazen gaze, tell of the prostitution or loss of that which 
seems to us the one angelic element of the world. All 
these are human wrecks — lost lives — men and women 
who have surrendered all that is best in them to that 
which is basest — men and women who have turned their 
backs upon God and heaven, and gone down into a very 
hell of beastliness. Whence and why are these wrecks ? 
Let us see. 

In the constitution of man — a constitution which asso- 
ciates spirit with matter by marvellous marriage of 
organisms, and intimately interchanging sympathies, 
and subtle interdependences — the Creator has so con- 
structed the body that it shall convey to the mind, for 
its comprehension, the properties and qualities of ma- 
terial things. These properties and qualities are com- 
municated by and through the senses, and these senses 
are so constituted as, in their exercise and office, to 
affect us by pleasure or by pain. Chiefly the office of 
the senses is that of conveying pleasure. For the sense 
of smell, the vital alchemy at work in the flowers elab- 
orates an infinite variety of perfumes. For the sense 
of taste, the food is prepared in meats and fruits and 
grains of an infinite variety of flavors. The auditory 
sense is regaled by birds and brooks, by instruments 
which the cunning hand of man has made, and by that 
greatest of all instruments, the human voice. Light 
ministers to the pleasure of vision, reflected by number- 
less forms of beauty. In fact, there is no pathway that 



Does Sensuality Pay? 83 

leads into the penetralia of our natures, and gives pas- 
sage to the comprehension of the good things of God, 
that does not absorb something of the divine aroma of 
that which it bears. The process of eating, by which 
we prepare for deglutition the food necessary for our 
support, is a process of pleasure. We do not gorge our 
food like the anaconda, impelled by a bald and beastly 
greed ; but its qualities please our senses. 

Now, so long as these senses are kept to their appro- 
priate ministry — always a subordinate one, in that they 
deal entirely with the qualities and properties of mat- 
ter — so long will it be well with the soul to which they 
minister ; but whenever the soul turns to them as the 
source of its highest pleasure, and seeks for the multi- 
plication and intension of those pleasures as the great 
end of its life, then the whole being is prostituted, and 
absolute, unmixed evil is the natural and inevitable re- 
sult. There is no law in the universe more certain in 
its operation than that which punishes sensuality. The 
man who makes a god of his belly feels the result in an 
unwieldy, gouty frame and a stupid brain. The man 
who delights in the intoxication of his senses by the use 
of stimulants, wears them out, and poisons, even to 
their death, both body and soul. The man and the 
woman who seek, by the gratification of desires un- 
chastened by love and unwarranted by law, to filch 
from a heaven-ordained relation the delights of its hal- 
lowed commerce, and give themselves up to this form 



84 Gold-Foil. 

of sensuality, never fail to win to themselves moral 
corruption or induration, and bodily imbecility and dis- 
ease. At the gate of this garden of sensual pleasure 
the angel stands with his sword of flame, and no man 
enters unsmitten of him. In the path of sensuality, in 
all its multiplied forms, God has placed barriers moun- 
tain-high, to stop men, and frighten them back from 
the certain degradation and destruction to which it 
leads. The path to life is in the opposite direction. 

I have said thus much upon the philosophy of the 
prostitution of the soul to sense, that I might the more 
readily reach the convictions of a generation which, ac- 
tive as it is in intellectual and Christian development, 
has stronger tendencies to sensuality than any of its 
predecessors in this country. As wealth increases in 
any country, the tendencies to sensuality, through the 
temptations of idleness and the growth of the means of 
gratification, always increase. The history of national 
decline and downfall is but a detail of the effects of sen- 
suality. The elevation of style in living beyond a cer- 
tain point, always impinges on the sensual. Beyond 
this point, that which we call luxury commences, and 
luxury is but sensuality refined. In this country we are 
all seeking for luxury ; and those who cannot afford it, 
associated with homes, home pleasures, and home re- 
straints, embrace such forms of sensual gratification as 
come within their means to purchase. Men who are 
poor, look on with envy, and are seeking on every side, 



Does Sensuality Pay? 85 

in new philosophies and systems, and phases of religion, 
for the license which shall give them more of sense with 
smaller drafts on conscience. As the free spirit of the 
age breaks away from bondage to old ideas, old bigot- 
ries, and old superstitions, it goes wild, and in its newly- 
found liberty runs daringly and blindly into forbidden 
fields. The free-love doctrines and free-love practices 
of the day, the multiplication of cases of divorce, and 
the shameful infidelities that prevail, are all indications 
of the sensual tendencies of the age. 

Where penalty succeeds so poorly, there may seem 
to be rather poor encouragement for preaching ; but, 
in my opinion, the teachers and preachers of the age 
should direct more of their power against a tendency 
which is doing more to undermine the character of the 
American people than their sateless thirst for gold. 
Even in the general strife for wealth, the desire for 
luxury is largely the motive power. The object kept 
prominently in view is feasting — eye-feasting, ear-feast- 
ing, tongue-feasting, or the feasting of other or of all the 
senses — and this beyond natural desire, and with the 
wish and intent to coax from the organs of sense more 
of pleasure than they can afford with health to them- 
selves and the souls to which they minister. 

Now my opinion is, that to a man, or a body of men, 
prostituted or in process of prostitution to sense, there 
is very little use in talking of religion or morals. Those 
are motives which they do not understand. So I ad- 



86 Gold-Foil. 

dress myself to the selfishness of the age, as a motive, 
the strength of which may not be questioned, and bid 
it withdraw its hand from this fire on pain of losing it. 
" Cent, per cent, do we pay for every vicious indul- 
gence," says the proverb ; but it is too moderate by half 
in its estimate of expense, for a youth of sensual pleas- 
ure can never compensate for a life of pain. If you do 
not believe this, ask the debauchee whose senses and 
sensibilities were long since burned to ashes. Seek 
further testimony, if you will, of her whose brief life of 
sensuality is closed by abandonment ; or of him whose 
gluttony has made him a disgustingly bulky bundle of 
ailments, or of him whose nerves shiver with the poison 
on which they live. If you say that I am dealing with 
extremes, without analogies to yourselves, retire into 
your own consciousness, and question what you find 
there — old sins of sense that start up and fill you with 
remorse and fear — old wounds of conscience gaping and 
bleeding still — old fractures of character that refuse to 
unite, and make you shudder at your own weakness — 
old stains upon your purity that memory will not allow 
to fade. This process will prove to any man of ordi- 
nary weakness, who has been subjected to ordinary 
temptations, that never, in a single instance, has he 
indulged in an unlawful sensual pleasure without pay- 
ing for it a thousand times in pain. 

The universal fact, based on universal experience, is, 
that there is nothing in the world that makes so poor a 



Does Sensuality Pay ? 87 

return for its cost as sensual pleasure. No man ever 
traded extensively in this line without becoming a bank- 
rupt in happiness. It does not pay, and cannot be 
made to pay, and every man would see and understand 
this if he would keep an account of his receipts and ex- 
penditures. Let me help you to open a book of this 
kind. Credit Sensual Pleasure for a spree — a night of 
hilarity, produced by drinking and feasting ; and then 
turn to the other side of the account, and debit it with 
the details of cost — money enough to furnish bread for a 
hundred hungry mouths; a day of languor, pain, and 
indolence; a damaged reputation which may interfere 
with the projects and prospects of a whole life ; a loss 
of self-respect, and a deadening of moral sensibility ; a 
reduction of the capacity of enjoyment and of the stock 
of vitality ; the sullen pangs of a reproving conscience ; 
the tears of a mother and the severer anguish of a father, 
— all these, and more, for an hour of artificial insanity! 
How does the account look ? 

Suppose we try another : Credit Sensual Pleasure 
with the illicit indulgence of a powerful passion. Then 
place the cost upon the debit side of the ledger : shame 
and fear, conscious loss of purity, the possession of a 
foul secret that is to be carried into all society, and into 
all relationships, disease and remorse, or, what is more 
than all these, hardness, brutality, and the formation of 
habits whose only end is ruin. I may not, through fear 
of giving offence, enter into all the details of the debit 



38 Gold-Foil. 

side of this account. They may be found and read of 
all men in graveyards, in hospitals, in brothels, in gar- 
rets, and cellars, in ruined families, and ruined hearts 
and hopes. Now does this thing pay ? 

I have presented only the private side of this account, 
and that but imperfectly. There is a public side. The 
innumerable paupers, whose life is supported by the 
State, owe their pauperism, directly or remotely, in 
three cases out of four, to sensuality — to strong drink, 
licentiousness, or some form of extravagance that pro- 
ceeded from a devotion to sensual pleasure. Idiots be- 
gotten in drunkenness, lunatics through various forms 
of sensual vice, criminals who are caged in every jail 
and prison like wild beasts, diseased creatures, alike 
loathsome to themselves and others, crowded into num- 
berless pestilent hospitals, — all these are public bur- 
dens, imposed by the sins of sensuality. If we run 
through the whole catalogue of crimes, we shall find 
them all growing directly or indirectly out of this com- 
prehensive vice. In fact, it may be said that all crime, 
with all its consequences, is but a manifestation of the 
dominance of sense over reason and conscience. 

In this view — and no one knows better than its victims 
that it is the correct view — Sensuality rises into the 
position of the grand scourge of mankind. It is the 
mother of disease, the nurse of crime, the burden of 
taxation, and the destroyer of souls. Oh, if the world 
could rise out of this swamp of sensuality, rank with 



Does Sensuality Pay ? 89 

weeds and dank with deadly vapors — full of vipers, thick 
with pitfalls, and lurid with deceptive lights, and stand 
upon the secure heights of virtue where God's sun 
shines, and the winds of heaven breathe blandly and 
healthfully, how would human life become blessed and 
beautiful ! The great burden of the world rolled off, 
how would it spring forward into a grand career of pros- 
perity and progress ! This change, for this country, 
rests almost entirely with the young men of the country. 
It lies with them more than any other class, and more 
than all other classes, to say whether this country shall 
descend still lower in its path to brutality, or rise higher 
than the standard of its loftiest dreams. The devotees 
of sense, themselves, have greatly lost their power for 
good, and comparatively few will change their course of 
life. Woman will be pure if man will be true. Young 
men, this great result abides with you. If you could but 
see how beautiful a flower grows upon the thorny stalk 
of self-denial, you would give the plant the honor it de- 
serves. If it seem hard and homely, despise it not, for 
in it sleep the beauty of heaven and the breath of an- 
gels. If you do not witness the glory of its blossoming 
during the day of life, its petals will open when the night 
of death comes, and gladden your closing eyes with their 
marvellous loveliness, and fill your soul with their grate- 
ful perfume. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WA Y TO GRO W OLD. 

" Good morrow, glasses ! Farewell, lasses ! " 
"All wish to live long, but none to be called old." 
14 Every dog has his day." 

M A hundred years hence we shall all be bald." 

M If you would not live to be old, you must be hanged when you are 
young." 

IF we except the Chinese, (who have a remarkable 
talent for being exceptions to general rules,) all men 
and women make an idol of youth. Manhood in its 
fresh embodiment — healthful, strong, and majestic — 
and womanhood in its rosy morning — fragrant with 
sweet thoughts and hopes, and radiant in its dewy 
beauty — attract the love and admiration of all — perhaps 
even the envy of many. Childhood looks up to them, 
and longs to grow to their estate. Old age regards the 
memory of them with a sigh, and rarely fails to find in 
them its most congenial society. We walk to our mir- 
rors, and scan with gathering sadness the lines that the 
graver of care has traced, and pluck from our temples, 



The Way to Grow Old. 91 

with unhappy surprise, the first stark threads of silver 
that Time slips through our chance-thrown locks, or in- 
lays upon their plaited black and brown ; yet " we feel 
as young as we ever did." We are not estranged from 
the young, but stand among them with strong hands 
and hearts, unable to realize that they look upon us as 
men and women who are "getting considerably along 
in the world." The cheek and lip of Beauty, her spark- 
ling eyes, and plump outline, and graceful and elastic 
step, touch us with the same thrill of pleasure that they 
did in the early days of sympathy and passion. Youth 
— ah ! Beautiful Gate of the Temple of Life ! It mat- 
ters little how gorgeous the temple may be when en- 
tered, — how majestic the arches, how long the vista, 
how richly illuminated and emblazoned the windows, 
or how heavenly the music that thrills its iris-tinted 
silences, — we never forget the precious moments spent 
in lingering at the portal, the glorious rosette above it, 
and the sky-born melody of the chimes that filled our 
ears and hearts with welcome. 

Our life's ideal is always filled with the blood and 
breath of youth. Our finest conceptions of human 
beauty evermore embrace youth as their prime element. 
Strength, enthusiasm, hope, purity, love, — all these 
when combined and embodied in their most attractive 
forms, rise in our imaginations as youthful attributes. 
So true is this, that in looking forward to the day when 
the dust of those who have gone before us into the land 



92 Gold- Foil. 

of spirits shall rise, and assume the forms they are to 
wear in the celestial city, there springs up always a 
vision of their youth. We expect to meet the tottering 
father whose eyes we closed, and whose wasted and 
feeble limbs we composed, as young, and fresh, and 
strong as when he bore us to the baptismal font. There 
are to be no thin, silvery curls upon the brow of the 
mother, but in some sweet way, all the hallowed graces 
of maternity and the unfathomable tenderness of a soul 
disciplined by sorrow are to be associated — interfused — 
with the beauty and the youth of the bride. Immor- 
tality — twin-sister of Eternity — is always young, and 
brings no thought of age and decay. An angel with a 
wrinkle ? A cherub with a feeble or a weary wing ? 
We cannot imagine such beings. Heaven and ever- 
lasting youth are inseparable thoughts. 

So it is that the first consciousness we have of grow- 
ing old comes to us with a pang. There seems to be 
something unnatural in it. We feel the soul within us 
expanding, and know that its vision is clearer, its 
power greater, and its capacity for happiness diviner, 
yet the body in which this soul lives shows signs of de- 
cay. There is an increasing incompatibility between 
the tenant and the tenement. Some people feel so 
badly about it that they undertake to repair the old 
tabernacle — to dye their hair, and don artificial curls, 
and put on feathers and finery. It is all a pretty little 
device, and harmless, because it cheats nobody, and 



The Way to Grow Old. 93 

really makes the world better looking. And this brings 
me to what I desire to say touching the duty of growing 
old gracefully and happily. 

There is a homely kind of philosophy that will help 
those who are not up to anything higher. The alter- 
native of growing old is dying young. The only way to 
keep hair from becoming gray is to have it clipped off 
as a memento of a departed man, or laid away to de- 
cay with him. Wrinkles are either to be made out in 
God's sunlight, among living things, by the hand of 
Time, or by worms working in the dark. I take it that 
there is an easy choice between these two evils, and 
that whatever the evidences may be that God has an- 
swered our wishes — whether gray hairs, or feeble knees, 
or dull sight — we should regard them with gratitude. 

Again, keeping alive our sympathy with the race to 
which we belong, and manfully willing to take our 
chance with the rest, we should remember that when 
we perceive the signs of age upon ourselves, we have 
enjoyed our own single term of youth, like all men who 
have gone before us, and that those who come after us 
will have no more. Every dog has his day. Those who 
are young to-day, and who are doubtless the subjects 
of envy to some of us, will be old to-morrow. They 
are enjoying the day we have already enjoyed, and will 
soon reach the point where we are standing. It is an 
even thing ; and it compromises all that is unselfish and 
chivalrous within us to wish for a better lot in this re- 



94 Gold- Foil. 

spect than is meted out to the rest of the great brother- 
hood of men. Still again, if we find the evidences of 
age creeping upon us, we cannot avoid their further 
encroachment except by committing suicide ; and this 
would be a very bad alternative. What we cannot help, 
we must bear ; and it is for our interest to bear it cheer- 
fully. It is very pleasant to be young, but as the body 
can only be young once, the next best thing is to have 
the privilege of growing old. We are to remember 
that if we look back with regret to the period we have 
passed, the young are looking forward with hope that 
they may reach the period at which we have arrived. 
They may not like to be called old, but they all wish 
to live long. 

But there is a better point than this from which to 
regard this matter. To go back to our theory that 
every thing immortal in its nature is, by necessity of 
that nature, young, I make the proposition that the 
secret of growing old gracefully and happily resides in 
the comprehension of this fact, and in the institution of 
such measures as may be necessary to keep a decaying 
body from infecting or injuring in any way the soul's 
health while attached to it. No man on God's footstool 
feels old, or realizes that he is old, whose soul has not 
been improperly affected by his body. The feeling of 
age in the mind is like the effect upon life of being in an 
old, damp house, dingy with dirt and reeking with rot- 
tenness, — more perhaps like the effect of the close, bed- 



The Way to Grow Old. 95 

fellow association of age and infancy — the former draw- 
ing off the vital forces of the latter, and imparting to it 
the taint of its diseases. There is no such thing as an 
old soul in the universe, but there are a great many dis- 
eased or depressed souls — diseased or depressed by a 
great variety of causes, prominent among which is the 
decay of the bodies which they inhabit. 

The natural idolatry exercised by the old for the 
young, though owing greatly to the unpleasant associa- 
tions of age, has a deeper meaning in it than we have 
generally comprehended. God turns our hearts toward 
the young that the influence of youth upon them may be 
a power conservative of their health, and preventive of 
the depressing influence of bodily age. It is a part of 
the beautiful ministry of children to preserve uninjured 
by the passage of time the souls of those with whom they 
are associated ; and in the general rule of life the Good 
Father provides children for those who live to middle 
age, and when those are grown up, He gives them 
grand-children, so that they shall never be without this 
beneficent influence. Those who remain unmarried, or 
are not blest with children, grow old in feeling as they 
grow old in years, from the lack of this influence upon 
them, though there are exceptions to this rule — the ex- 
ceptions illustrating the principle even better and more 
forcibly than the general rule itself. There are some 
among the childless old who are passionately fond of 
children, and I have never known such men and women 



g6 Gold-Foil. 

who were not genial, sunny, and young in feeling. 
They seem instinctively to turn to children for that in- 
fluence, whatever it may be, which will preserve their 
souls from the depressing power of age. I make the 
broad proposition that there is not an old man or woman 
living, at this moment in close sympathy with the hearts 
and minds of children and youth, who feels the influence 
upon his or her soul of a decaying body. 

The springs of the soul's life abide in the affections. 
If these are properly fed, either by love of the young or 
by love in its higher and stronger manifestations, they 
mount into perennial youth. Next above the love of the 
young — special or universal — comes connubial love, as a 
conservator of the youthful feeling of the soul. Two 
married hearts that came together in early life, and 
have lived^in the harmony and love which constitute 
real marriage, never grow old. The love they bear to 
one another is an immortal thing. It is as fond and 
tender as it was when they pledged their faith to each 
other at the altar. Such a love as this can rise from no 
other than an immortal fountain. The fires of passion 
may die, desire may burn out like a candle, yet chas- 
tened and purified, this love — a product of essential 
youth — becomes the conservator of youth. The pine 
produces its resin, and the resin preserves the pine from 
decay, centuries after the life that produced it has 
passed away. The little spring that bursts up from 
where nature prepares her waters for the healing of the 



The Way to Grow Old. 97 

nations, deposits for itself a wall which shuts out all 
impurities, and keeps it always sparkling and young. 

Above this love — better than this and every other 
love — is the love of the soul for the Father Soul — the 
sympathy of that which is immortal in it for Him from 
whom it came. The man who comprehends his relation 
to this Being, and whose heart goes out toward Him in 
true filial affection, knows that age is only a word, and 
that it has no more relation to his soul than it has to 
God himself. God is doubtless intimately associated 
with this material universe. It is blent with all His 
plans. It is the organ in multitudinous methods of His 
thought. In many ways it is the means by which' He 
manifests His will, so that, in a certain sense, we may 
regard it as a body of which He is the resident and 
president soul. Yet this universe is to wax old like a 
garment. It is to fade like our own bodies ; but no one 
supposes that the old age of the universe will touch the 
immortal youth of its Maker. The extinguishment of 
one of the lamps that He has hung out in space brings no 
shadow upon His brow. The wreck of a sidereal system 
works no weakness in His arm. Wrapped in the aura 
of His own ineffable love, He lives ; and because He 
lives, we shall live also ; because He is immortally 
young shall we also be immortally young ; because no 
organized material system, however intimately associ- 
ated with Him, can affect, by its decay and wreck, the 
fountain of His life, the decay of our bodies, if we are 
5 



98 Gold-Foil. 

like Him, and live in the same atmosphere of love, will 
not affect us, either in fact or feeling. 

A man who lives wrapped in this atmosphere of love 
— love of children, love of a bosom companion, love of 
men, love of God — imparts to his decaying body some- 
thing of the youth of the spirit within. As the body 
may and does affect the spirit when no counteracting 
agencies prevent, so does the spirit act upon the body 
as a preservative power when in its normal condition 
and exercise. Many an old man's and woman's face 
have I seen luminous with the fires of youth, outshining 
from the soul. The clogs are lifted from the mortal 
when the soul comes into sympathy with this element of 
immortality. The love that gushes for all is the real 
elixir of life — the fountain of bodily longevity. It is the 
lack of this that always produces the feeling of age. 
Upon a soul not filled and exercised by love, the decay- 
ing body encroaches with its weakness and poison, till 
the belief of many in the immortality of the soul — a 
soul independent of matter — becomes uprooted. 

Whenever men or women find themselves losing their 
sympathy with youthful hearts and pursuits, they may 
be sure that something is wrong with them ; for it is not 
in the nature of the soul to grow old. It may grow in 
height, and depth, and breadth, and power, but the 
passage of years can bring it no decay. Consequently, 
all those who feel themselves dissonances in the song 
which the young life around them is singing, are allow- 



The Way to Grow Old. 99 

ing their bodies to do their souls damage. I believe 
that every healthy old saint in Christendom finds his 
heart going out more and more towards the young. As 
his evening sun descends, and heaven grows glorious 
while the shadows gather upon the earth, he loves more 
and more to gather around him that which is essentially 
heavenly — young men and maidens, and the bright 
forms and innocent faces of children. Prepared for 
heaven, it is only in such society and that which sym- 
pathizes with it, that he finds his heart at home. I be- 
lieve that social life, in all its healthful manifestations, 
is that which combines all ages — which brings youth 
and middle age together with old age and childhood. 
Every age needs the influence of every other age to 
keep it healthful. There is no such thing as age with 
those who, in a few years at most, will be as the angels 
in heaven. As we shall be, and as we shall associate, 
there, so should we be, and so should we associate 
here ; and let this truth never fail to be remembered : 
that unless the aged sympathize with the young, they 
will get no sympathy, save in the form of pity, from 
the young. God does not send young sympathies in 
that direction. He always holds us back with them, 
while our bodies go on to decay and death, and we for- 
get, in immortal youth, that we were ever old. 



CHAPTER X. 

ALMSGIVING. 

" Give and spend, 
And God will send." 
"Charity and pride have different aims, yet both feed the poor." 
11 What the Abbot of Bamba cannot eat, he gives away for the good of 
his soul." 

" He steals a pig, and gives away the trotters for God's sake." 

I HAVE no idea of absolute property but that which 
is born of absolute creation by an independent, self- 
existent power. There is but one genuine proprietor 
in the universe, and that proprietor is its Maker. All 
that we call ours — all that we win by toil, and are al- 
lowed to hold, for our use and at our disposal, by the 
laws of civil society — was made and is owned by Him 
who made and owns us. The mite that makes a home 
for itself in our cheese does not, by the processes of 
burrowing and feeding, institute a claim to property in 
the cheese. The robin that builds a nest in our maple, 
from materials selected upon our land, cannot be said 
to own the tree, if we have a purpose for it that inter- 



Almsgiving. 101 

feres with her nest. That God is the grand proprietor 
must be received as a cardinal, vital fact by all who do 
not deny the existence of God himself. It is not for me 
to declare to the world the manner in which He re- 
gards this portion of His property ; but I cannot help 
thinking that He looks upon it as a great mansion 
which He has taken infinite pains to construct for the 
shelter and support of a family of children in whom 
He takes infinite interest. These continents of ver- 
dure, this great and wide sea, swinging like a pendu- 
dulum between its shores, overhung by the moon's 
mysterious dial, these rivers, nursed in their crystal in- 
fancy at the bosoms of these motherly hills and moun- 
tains, this downy atmosphere, that feeds our breath, 
and fans our brows, and springs over us its canopy of 
blue, this wonderful variety of animal life, that re- 
joices in forest wildernesses and smooth pastures, and 
swims in the sea and floats upon the air — all these were 
made and are supported by His power, for the benefit 
of the intelligent creatures whom He has placed among 
them. 

Now, if we have any thing like ownership in these 
things, this ownership has its basis in God's benefi- 
cence. If we hold any thing by right, for our special 
use, and at our disposal, we hold it as a gift of God, 
and as a temporary gift. We are allowed to use these 
things for a time ; and then we pass away, and they are 
transferred to the possession of others. Not unfre- 



102 Gold- Foil. 

quently they are taken from us while we live. The pa- 
tient Man of Uz exhibited his idea of property — the 
true idea — in the familiar words, "The Lord gave, and 
the Lord hath taken away." In making this world, the 
Creator furnished it with all the materials necessary for 
the support of His entire human family. For the best 
development of our minds and bodies, He made it 
necessary for us to labor, so that, by moulding the 
agencies and recombining the materials He permits us 
to use, we may secure that which is necessary for our 
sustenance and shelter. He knew that some would be 
able to secure more than enough for sustenance and 
shelter, and that others would not be able to secure 
enough, yet He did not intend that any should lack 
food and clothing, or any of the essentials of healthful 
bodily and mental life. He knew, and, I verily believe, 
intended, that some should be poor and that others 
should be rich ; and thus instituted the emergency for 
human beneficence or charity. It is better, on the 
whole, that the world should be made up of benefactors 
and beneficiaries than that each man should be inde- 
pendent of every other man. 

Thus, every man whom He has made, or whom He 
has allowed to become, rich, He has by that favor com- 
missioned to be almoner of His bounty to those whom 
He has not thus favored. The sick, the helpless, the 
utterly poor through misfortune — these are always with 
us. The Saviour Himself stated this as a fa*ct good for 



A hnsgiv ing. 103 

all time ; and I know of no man who dares to deny 
that these unfortunate ones have an absolute right to 
live, and, consequently, a right to so much of the prop- 
erty of others as may be necessary to support them. 
The pauper systems established by all Christian states 
have their basis in the absolute right of the helpless to 
aid at the hand of society. If you, who read these 
words, are rich, you recognize, every time you pay a 
tax for the comfort and support of those who can do 
nothing or little for themselves, the fact that a portion 
of your wealth, at least, belongs to somebody else. 
Whether you recognize it or not, the fact is the same. 
What we call State charities, are essentially State equi- 
ties. The lunatic asylums, the pauper establishments, 
the hospitals, the reform schools, all grow out of the 
duty which the element of wealth in society owes to 
the element of weakness. 

But the State is a great body, and moves clumsily. 
There are countless fields of beneficent or charitable 
effort and privilege to which its operations are not 
fitted. There is a great amount of work which it 
neither can do, nor should do ; and precisely here arise 
the duties of individual wealth to individual want — of 
individual wealth to the need of the world for food, rai- 
ment, Christian light, educational and religious institu- 
tions, and almost numberless schemes of public good. 
If, in the economy of Heaven, there exist the necessity 
of institutions and schemes for private and public good 



104 Gold- Foil. 

which are manifestly outside of the legitimate sphere of 
the State — institutions and schemes which can only be 
established by the contributions of wealth — it is as if 
God had laid his finger upon every rich man's purse, 
and pronounced the word, " Give ! " What do you 
think God gave you more wealth than is requisite to 
satisfy your rational wants for, when you look around 
and see how many are in absolute need of that which 
you do not need ? Can you not take the hint ? 

Men may give from a compassionate, or generous 
impulse — from a momentary excitement of their sym- 
pathies—and very much is given in this way, without 
doubt. I will not quarrel with this variety of charity ; 
but I believe that a genuine spirit of beneficence can 
be exercised by no mind that does not recognize all the 
wealth it enjoys as the gift of God, to be shared with 
the children of penury, or devoted to institutions that 
contemplate the general good. God is the giver, life is 
a partnership, humanity is a brotherhood. The selfish 
accumulation, and sequestration from society of super- 
fluous good, is at war with the economy of the Uni- 
verse. Every thing in nature tends to equilibrium, and 
the universal compensation of expenditure. The rill 
takes the gift of the mountain spring and passes it on to 
the brook, and the brook pours the waters it receives 
into the river, and the river bears the burden of its 
gifts to the sea, and heaven itself descends to lift from 
the sea and return in cloud-winged argosies to the 



Almsgiving. 105 

spring from whence they came the waters which it gave, 
and glorifies the spot by hanging over it the beauty 
of its rainbow. What earth sends up, heaven sends 
down, and what heaven sends down, earth returns. 
Circulation, diffusion, tendency by multiplied methods 
to equilibrium — these are the universal laws of nature. 
It is only man that hoards. It is only man that ac- 
cumulates, and for selfish ends holds imprisoned super- 
fluous good, and refuses to let it go out on its benefi- 
cent mission. 

The charity of the day is, as a general thing, but a 
sorry apology for that beneficence which springs from 
a true apprehension of the primary source of wealth, 
its real ownership, and its legitimate uses. Millions 
have doubtless been given for the gratification of 
pride, and for the purpose of securing the applause of 
the world. If the time ever come when even and ex- 
act justice shall be meted out to the various agencies 
operative in the world toward beneficent results, the 
recipients of charity in its several forms will find them- 
selves largely indebted to the devil. Bread is bread to 
the hungry, and clothing raiment to the naked, and the 
Bible light to the benighted. It does not matter to 
the needy from what source a charitable ministry pro- 
ceed. If they are fed and clothed and enlightened, 
they have cause of satisfaction and gratitude, without 
questioning the sources of the good which reaches them. 

I suppose that one of the severest trials of a sordid 
5* 



io6 Go Id- Foil. 

man is that which is caused by the disgust he feels in 
the society of his own soul. I once heard a preacher 
remark that were it not for the interposition of sleep, 
by which all men are separated once in twenty-four 
hours from the consciousness of their own meanness, 
they would all die of self- contempt. I judge the state- 
ment to be somewhat broad, but it holds within it a 
truth which lies at the basis of a moiety, more or less, 
of the charities of wealth. Every man who achieves 
riches by great speculations, by sharp practices, by 
trade which involves operations not altogether honor- 
able, has his own method of maintaining self-compla- 
cency, or self-toleration ; but his efforts usually take 
the form of charity. There is no scoundrel living who 
does not feel obliged to convince himself, in some way, 
that he is as good as the average of mankind. Poor 
scoundrels, who have no more than money enough to 
feed their vices and themselves, depreciate the excel- 
lence of the character about them, and win the self- 
complacency they seek by dragging it down to the dirt 
which defines their own level. Rich scoundrels, find- 
ing themselves respectable as the world goes, naturally 
resort to sacrifices — to throwing out and abandoning 
to the maw of the wolf that follows them some con- 
temptible portion of gains gotten meanly and kept 
foully. Even the highway robber boasts that if he has 
taken from the rich, he has given to the poor. Not 
unfrequently these men, grown rich by doubtful courses, 



Almsgiving. 107 

become special patrons of the church, or of educational 
institutions. We see them installed in the most ex- 
pensive pews on Sunday, or adorning a select position 
devoted to the annual exhibition of a board of trustees. 

But these are all comparatively tolerable men. They 
do good in the world, and evince a degree of sensitive- 
ness which demands more or less of our sympathy. 
There is a form of self-conciliation, however, which 
would be laughable were its results less disastrous. 
Though not laughable, it is really admirable, as a speci- 
men of the most perfect type of meanness ; for I take 
it that every thing perfect in its kind is, in a sense, ad- 
mirable. It is exhibited by those who undertake to 
satisfy themselves with themselves by initiating secret 
schemes of good to go into operation after they are dead 
— schemes which, sooner than establish or assist, they 
would pluck their eyes out, if they were expecting to 
'live forever. They are thus enabled to gratify their 
greed for gold — to overreach, exact usury, and hoard, 
and at the same time save themselves from a crushing 
self-contempt by contemplating in secret the fact that 
their gains are already devoted to a good end ! But 
the devil never leaves them here. He induces them to 
trample under feet the sympathies and claims of con- 
sanguinity, to cut off with a dirty shilling old servants 
whose lives have been devoted to them, to institute 
schemes of beneficence impracticable even to ludicrous- 
ness, or to leave their wills so imperfectly drawn as to 



108 Gold-Foil. 

create quarrels among their natural heirs, and destroy 
the peace and harmony of families that will hold their 
memories fit subjects of execration so long as they hold 
them at all. 

It is time that wealth in nominally Christian hands 
were bestowed upon the weak, the needy, and the suf- 
fering, from higher motives than a compassionate im- 
pulse or desire for public applause and private satisfac- 
tion. I know that it is very hard to admit that we do not 
hold our superfluous wealth and superabundant means 
by absolute right — that what we earn by toil or win by 
traffic is not ours to hoard or dispense at our pleasure ; 
but if we are really and truly owners of what we possess, 
then beneficence is no duty. It is simply a favor shown 
to God through care for His unfortunate children, for 
which He owes us either adequate compensation or 
appropriate gratitude. The simple truth is, that in the 
degree by which a man's wealth is increased, is his 
family enlarged. Over against every pile of superfluous 
dollars, God places a pile of needs. 

I account the office of benefactor, or almoner, to 
which God appoints all those whom he has favored with 
wealth, one of the most honorable and delightful in the 
world. He never institutes a channel for the passage 
of His bounties that those bounties do not enrich and 
beautify. The barren moor that parts before the steel 
of the mountan brook betrays the furrow by a fresher 
green and rarer flowers. Noble cities and all forms of 



Almsgiving. 109 

beautiful life mirror themselves in rivers that become 
highways for the passage of commerce. God gives 
leaves to every stalk that bears juices up to the growing 
fruit, and presents a flower in advance to every twig 
that elaborates a seed. The sky weaves radiant gar- 
lands for itself from the clouds to which it gives trans- 
portation. So every man who becomes heartily and 
understandingly a channel of the divine beneficence, is 
enriched through every league of his life. Perennial sat- 
isfaction springs around and within him with perennial 
verdure. Flowers of gratitude and gladness bloom all 
along his pathway, and the melodious gurgle of the bless- 
ings he bears is echoed back by the melodious waves 
of the recipient stream. 

We need at this period of the Christian develop- 
ment a more thorough recognition of the great truths I 
have endeavored to reveal. Churches are crippled with 
debt, or languish for efficient support. Educational in- 
stitutions are begging for aid to enable them to meet 
the wants of the time. Missions encroach but feebly 
upon the domains of superstition and ignorance. The 
people are unsupplied with good public libraries. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of helpless children are growing up 
ignorant and vicious. Sickness and want are evermore 
around us. Need in a thousand forms cries for aid by 
a thousand voices ; and while there is wealth enough 
in Christendom to satisfy this cry, and the cry re- 
mains unsatisfied, there will remain wrongfully with- 



no Gold- Foil. 

held from its appropriate use the wealth God has sent 
to satisfy it. So open your hands, ye whose hands are 
full ! The world is waiting for you ! Heaven is waiting 
for you ! The whole machinery of the divine benefi- 
cence is clogged by your hard hearts and rigid fingers. 
Give and spend, and be sure that God will send ; for 
only in giving and spending do you fulfil the object of 
His sending. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE LOVE OF WHAT IS OURS. 

11 There is one good wife in the country, and every man thinks he hath 
her." 

"Every bird likes his own nest the best." 
"Every man thinks that his own geese are swans." 

WHENEVER that becomes a personal posses- 
sion which is legitimately an object of love, 
and which involves one's character for good taste, 
sound judgment, and personal power or prowess, its 
value, in the eye and heart of its possessor, is raised 
above the estimate and appreciation of other minds. 
If we select a horse for certain points of organization, 
and certain characteristics of temper and training, and 
purchase him, we feel that, to a certain extent, that 
horse's reputation is a part of our own. We identify 
ourselves with the animal. If he trot a mile in three 
minutes, we are proud, as if the fact were in some way 
creditable to us. If he can travel eighty miles in a 
day, and continue it, we feel as if the fact were a com- 
pliment to ourselves. We see grandeur in the carriage 



112 Geld- Foil. 

of his head, and grace in the movements of his limbs, 
that no one else sees. So we look over our dwelling, 
in the arrangement and furniture of which we have ex- 
pressed our best ideas of home, or into our garden, 
which is as we made it, and their harmony and beauty 
impress us as they impress no others. Our friends pass 
both without a thought, perhaps, or they give them a 
quiet compliment that means but little. Our dog may 
be a very ugly brute, but we own him, and do not like 
to hear his ugliness alluded to. We are complimented 
in the admiration bestowed upon the prints and paint- 
ings which adorn the walls of our parlors, quite as much 
as if we had made them ourselves. There are num- 
berless beautiful and good and graceful women in the 
world, but that one of the number which has been the 
subject of our choice, and the mother of our children, 
is a little better than any other, although, for reasons 
best known to the world, we may not be the objects of 
any man's envy. 

So it is that each man has bread to eat that the 
world knows not of. So it is that each man is richer 
than the world estimates him to be. There is more 
than one sense in which no man makes an honest 
return of his property to the assessors of taxes. All 
those objects of possession into which we#have cast our 
thought, or which have come to us by purchase in- 
volving choice and the exercise of taste and judgment, 
become partakers of our own life — a part of ourselves 



The Love of What is Ours. 113 

and of our own personal value. We identify all our 
productions with ourselves. We have a private opinion 
of all our literary children that no one, else entertains, 
particularly if they are abused. Even our opinions 
upon the most important subjects are so recognized by 
us as a personal possession that we cannot separate 
them from our personality. It is for this reason that 
political and religious conflicts are so bitter. Men do 
not get angry because an opinion is attacked, but 
because they feel themselves attacked with any opinion 
which they hold. Their conscience, judgment, taste — 
every thing in them that joined in the formation or 
choice of an opinion — is affronted with the attack upon 
the opinion itself. This is the secret of the great ma- 
jority of the personalities and bitternesses that grow 
out of the high conflicts of opinion in the world. There 
is nothing to quarrel over and get excited about in an 
opinion, any more than in a potato, if it do not happen 
to belong to us. It is amusing to see the indifference 
with which a man will regard a public attack on an 
opinion which he has not accepted, and the excitement 
he will manifest when some cherished notion of his own 
is assailed. 

Now, when I find a law like this running through all 
mankind — a law which has none but good effects when 
held within legitimate limits of operation — I know that 
it means something. Such laws are never instituted for 
nothing. God's benevolence is in them somewhere — 



H4 Gold- Foil. 

that we may be sure of— and it becomes our pleasant 
task to find it. 

The first benevolent design that shows itself to us in 
this law and its operation is that of making men con- 
tented and happy. If each man feels that he has got 
the best wife in the world, the brightest and prettiest 
children, the finest horse, the cleverest dog, the most 
convenient and tasteful home, the soundest opinions in 
politics and religion — that all which he possesses has 
advantages apparent enough to himself over the posses- 
sions of his neighbors — it is that he may be happy and 
contented in them. Every man may see in the peculiar 
pleasures which he derives from his possessions a pro- 
vision of God for his special individuality — things in na- 
ture and art that answer with single and special intent 
to his judgment and taste, and the peculiar wants of 
his nature. The value that he places upon these things 
is not fictitious. They hold relations to him — to his 
nature and his wants — that they hold to no one else, 
and that no other things hold to him. They are, then, 
in a sense, a part of him. His life passes into them, 
and they pass into his life. He is identified with them, 
and they partake of those primary values which are 
based in each man's need of ministry. 

It is in these things that we are to look for God's 
special manifestations of benevolence to us. We re- 
ceive pleasure from the sunshine and the rain, from the 
stars overhead and the flowers under feet, from ocean 



The Love of What is Ours. 115 

and air, from sea and sky ; — all these, in fact, are pos- 
sessions — but they come to us, or are held, in common 
with all of our race. We are not proud of them. We 
do not point to the sun in vanity, nor do we boast of 
the nebulous silver that sheets the milky way. From 
the general ministry of God to the wants of the race 
we get no idea of His special provision for us. We see 
benevolence in it, but it is not meant particularly for 
ourselves. We find ourselves different from other men, 
and we find specially prepared for us those objects that 
arrange themselves with delightful relations around our 
individualities. It is not strange that they appear more 
valuable to us than to others, for they are, in fact, more 
valuable to us than to others. My friend loves devot- 
edly a woman whom I, and perhaps no one else, could 
ever love at all, or love so well, and that wife is God's 
expression of special benevolence toward him. So is 
every thing which, among his possessions, has a special 
value in his eyes — a value not apprehended by others. 

If men will examine their lot in this light, they will 
find themselves, much richer than they generally sup- 
pose themselves to be. There is, notwithstanding the 
line of facts which I have developed, abundant discon- 
tent and envy in the world ; and every man should look 
into his lot to see whether, on the whole, he would be 
willing to exchange it for that of any other man. Sup- 
pose that each individual who reads this article summon 
before his imagination the individual whose lot he has 



n6 Gold-FoiL 

been inclined to envy. Think the matter all over, and 
decide, my friend, whether you would exchange places 
with him. Would you give up your wife, your chil- 
dren, your home, your associations, your sentiments 
and opinions, your friendships, your temptations, and 
your name, for his wife, children, home, associations, 
friendships, sentiments, opinions, temptations, and 
name ? No ? Why not ? Ah ! you own something 
too precious to surrender — you possess that wealth 
which is of inestimable value with relation to your own 
peculiar self, and which you cannot afford to exchange 
for any thing else under the sun. Now. this wealth is 
the measure of God's special expression of love for you, 
and it is given to you to make you contented with your 
lot. Receive it as such, and be happy in it. Identify 
yourself with it. Rejoice in it, for it is something set 
apart by God for you, and is sacred to your use. He 
marries you to every one of these special blessings as 
truly as He marries you to the woman of your choice. 

As the mind advances towards a richer life and no- 
bler issues, another benevolent intent reveals itself as 
an end of this law. We dwell now among opinions, 
dogmas, creeds, institutions, conventionalisms, and as 
these lie nearest our life, we identify ourselves with 
them. We fight for them when they are assailed, and 
we are wounded in their destruction. To us they are, 
in certain aspects, the representatives of the will and 
way, the law and life of God ; and it is only in moments 



The Love of What is Ours. 117 

of inspiration or exaltation that we are able to pass 
through, or by, these representatives, and grasp the 
great realities between which and our weak minds they 
mediate. When the soul can lay its hand on truth 
itself, and appropriate it; when it can say " my Lord 
and my God ; " when it can enter sympathetically, 
with a rapt appreciation of the greatness and glory of 
its birthright, into the brotherhood of all pure intelli- 
gences ; when, answering to the thrill of the blood of 
the Godhead in its veins, it can say " My Father ; " 
when, with an imagination that ranges the glories of 
the universe, it apprehends an infinite kingdom, and 
sees itself a prince of the reigning house, and feels it- 
self at home, ah ! then it learns, or begins to learn, 
something of a law which, beginning like a rill in its 
humbler experiences, spreads into a river, that" sweeps 
it into the ocean of identity with God Himself. 

This is what the world, and especially the Christian 
world, wants to-day. It identifies itself with the shell 
of religion, while it needs identification with the truth, 
with God and* His life, with all the things of God. It 
needs to recognize all truth as its property, God and 
His life as its property, and all the things of God as its 
property ; and so to identify itself with this property 
that it shall feel its honor, its name, its all, bound to it 
— indissolubly connected with it. It was out of this 
thorough identification of the soul with God that came 
those pregnant words : " Do not I hate them that hate 



n8 Gold-Foil. 

thee ? " It is refreshing, in such a time as this, to look 
ba£k upon the histories of the ancient saints, and see 
how closely they stood by the side of God, and bound 
their own personal honor to His throne. God was their 
God ; His truth was their truth ; His honor was their 
honor ; and any attack made upon Him, His character, 
His truth, or His honor, was received as an attack upon 
themselves. We fight for our opinions, for our sect, 
for our church, for our institutions ; they fought for 
Him and for His truth — for that which only gives sig- 
nificance and value to any institution of man. Oh ! 
how far, how very far, are we from any just apprecia- 
tion of the infinite wealth upon which we may legiti- 
mately lay our hand as our own property ! We stand 
and hear the name of God blasphemed with a lighter 
shock and a smaller draft on personal feeling than we 
experience when we hear a pet dogma denounced, and 
this simply and alone because we identify ourselves 
with the dogma, as our possession, more than we do 
with the Deity. 

I can conceive of no reason, and I believe there is 
no reason, why God and Heaven, and the brotherhood 
of angels, seem so remote from those who believe 
themselves to be the sons and daughters of God, save 
in the fact that they have no recognized property or 
interest in them. The moment that these beings and 
things come into relation with a soul in any important 
sense as possessions, that soul will identify itself with 



The Love of What is Ours, 119 

them. When a soul approaches God as its Father, 
Heaven as its home, and all pure spirits as a portion of 
a family in which it rightfully holds a place, its interest 
and sympathy and honor are linked to them by a tie 
which cannot be dissolved. They enter into vital rela- 
tions with its life. They enter into and become a part 
of its life. Its destiny is hung upon them. In short, 
it is identified with them in such a way that it will be 
wounded the most keenly and honored the most grate- 
fully through them. 

Again, the benevolence of this law, by which we iden- 
tify ourselves with the things which we love as posses- 
sions, is manifested by the influence they are thus 
brought to bear upon our character. A man whose 
most highly valued possession is a horse, will so iden- 
tify himself with his possession that he will rise no 
higher in the scale of dignity than his horse. His 
horse and those who are identified with a similar pos- 
session will be the best society he has. He will enjoy 
no other. All his talk will be horse-talk. That which 
holds the most intimate relation to his life will deter- 
mine that life's development and character. Any stu- 
dent of human nature understands this. The class of 
what are strictly horse-men is just as distinctly marked 
a class as can be found ; and its characteristics are de- 
termined by their identification with the animal to 
which they are devoted. The benevolence of the op- 
eration of this law may not be so apparent in this, but 



120 Gold- Foil. 

the operation itself is illustrated with peculiar force. 
As we pass on, however, to the consideration of the 
influence of higher possessions, we find the benevolence 
for which we seek. 

Let God be apprehended by the soul as its own 
Father, and all truth as its own wealth, and all the uni- 
verse as its own home — the domain of its Father — and 
all pure intelligences as its brethren ; let all these come 
into the soul as possessions — as beings and things in 
which abide its rights and privileges — so that it identi- 
fies itself with them for time and eternity, and in the 
place of horse-men we have divine-men. There is no 
dignity in all God's world like this. It raises man 
above all the distinctions of wealth, above all titles, and 
above all earthly dignities whatsoever. It places a man 
where he can look up with a pure adoration, and down 
with a true charity. It releases him from bondage to 
creeds, and formularies of worship, and prescriptive 
lines of duty, and introduces him into the freedom of 
the sons of God. He is no more an alien — an outsider 
— a slave spurred to the performance of his task — for 
God's life is in him as a possession, and that life is its 
own law. He holds the hands of angels in his own. 
He lives in truth, and truth lives in him. He walks 
the world a prince, knowing and feeling that he is an 
heir of God — a joint heir with Jesus Christ. I can 
conceive of no dignity like this ; and when I see the 
great world of mankind identifying itself so exclusively 



The Love of What is Ours. 121 

with its meaner possessions, content with the dignity 
which they confer, I see how exceedingly wide the gap 
is which divides the present time from the promised 
millennium. 

Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also 
— the heart with all its manifestations of love, devotion, 
charity, and honor. I know of no good reason why the 
earth should differ essentially from heaven — why men 
may not so identify themselves with their highest treas- 
ures here that they will partake of the home feeling of 
those who walk in white upon the banks of the river of 
life — why they may not feel with relation to God and 
that which is most precious to Him — His children, His 
realm, His heaven — as they do toward their earthly 
father, the paternal mansion, and the brothers and 
sisters that cluster there. 

Give us an age of gallant, chivalrous Christianity — 
of men who maintain the honor of their Father's house. 
Give us an age that shall enlist the respect of all who 
respect earnestness and honor. Give us an age that 
shall appreciate that which it is fighting for, and will 
not crawl before the inferior and infernal powers that 
make war upon the throne. Give us an age in which 
Christians will fight for and stand by one another, and 
not fight against one another. Give us an age in 
which Christian manhood shall assert itself as the high- 
est earthly thing and the noblest earthly estate. Give 
us an age that, instead of whining and groaning under 



122 Gold- Foil. 

the truth, shall rejoice in the truth. Give us an age 
which, lifted into identity with its highest possessions, 
shall be made by those possessions patient, pure, 
heroic, and honorable. Give us the blessed thousand 
years ! 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE POWER OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 

"The straightest stick is crooked in water. 1 ' 

" Opportunity makes the thief. " 

"The orange that is too hard squeezed yields a bitter juice." 

" Circumstances alter cases. 1 " 

IN making up our judgments upon men and women 
who have fallen from their integrity, we fail to 
consider sufficiently the circumstances in which their 
fall occurred. While these may never justify the lapse 
which they occasioned, they furnish abundant basis for 
the compassionate and charitable judgment of all who, 
like them, are subject to temptation, and liable to cir- 
cumstances that weaken the soul in its power of re- 
sistance. The straightest stick is crooked in water, 
and the most upright character bends, even if it do not 
break, when subjected to a great temptation, in cir- 
cumstances that favor the wrong and tend to paralyze 
the power to withstand it. Before God, he or she who 
falls is guilty ; but their fellows should be the last to 
point the finger of contempt, or indulge in self-right- 



124 Gold- Foil. 

eous gratulations that they are not fallen also. It may 
reasonably be doubted whether, if there were to be a 
universal exchange of individualities in the world, the 
amount of sin would be sensibly diminished. In other 
words, if you, or I, had been subjected to the same 
temptations, under the same circumstances, that re- 
sulted in the sending of our old acquaintance to the 
state- prison for forgery, the probabilities are that we 
should to-day be dressing stone for the public good. 
If your daughter or mine had been exposed to the 
wiles of a villain, under the circumstances which sur- 
rounded our neighbor's daughter when she fell, and 
that neighbor's daughter had been in the place of ours, 
the probabilities are that our daughter would be lost 
to us and a true life, and that our neighbor's daughter 
•would be safe. Our business, then, is to thank God for 
the circumstances which have favored us, to pity those 
who have not been thus favored, and to be very careful 
of our censure. 

To a greater extent than the most of us imagine, the 
wrongs, sins and errors of the age were born of, and 
have been perpetuated by, circumstances. We were 
once accustomed to inveigh against slavery. We de- 
nounced it as a high crime in those who sustained it, 
and a curse to all the parties concerned in it. We won- 
dered why anybody could regard it in any different 
light. On the other hand, the upholders of slavery re- 
garded it as a divine institution, beneficial to the blacks 



The Power of Circumstances. 125 

and to themselves, and held its opponents to be fanatics, 
hypocrites, disorganizers, and inexpressibly contempti- 
ble men. To make both parties feel more kindly toward 
each other it ought to have been only necessary for 
them to remember that, had they exchanged dwelling- 
places and circumstances at their birth, they would 
have exchanged sentiments and opinions. Our craziest 
abolitionists would, from their natural temperament, 
have been in Charleston the craziest fire-eaters, and the 
most zealous advocate of slavery would at the North 
have been the principal speaker at the Syracuse con- 
ventions. If Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison had 
been born in New Orleans, to an inheritance of three 
hundred slaves apiece, and Robert Toombs and Alex- 
ander Stevens had grown up under the shadow of Bun- 
ker Hill, they would have been diametrically opposed 
to each other. It was the most senseless thing in the 
world for these parties to feel unkindly towards each 
other. Each might have struggled strenuously for the 
maintenance of his own ideas of the right, but both 
should always have remembered that it was from no 
merit or demerit of theirs that they differed. Circum- 
stances, in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, made both 
the opponents and the defenders of slavery. 

Thus it is in the matter of religion. The Catholic 
regards the Protestant as no Christian, and the Pro- 
testant regards the Catholic as the upholder of the 
grossest errors. Each class regards the other with 



126 Gold- Foil. 

contempt, and wonders how it can embrace a system 
which it deems utterly illegitimate and fatally danger- 
ous. What makes them differ? Circumstances, not 
choice. England and Ireland sit side by side, subjects 
of the same Queen. The English, born of Protestant 
parents, are Protestants. The Irish, born of Catholic 
parents, are Catholics. They stand in the relation of 
religious enemies, and talk about each other as bitterly 
as if they had really had something to do in making 
themselves what they respectively are, when, in ninety- 
nine cases in a hundred, they have had nothing to do 
with it whatever. The circumstances in which they 
were born and bred have made them what they are. 
The Catholics emigrate to this Protestant country. 
We regard them as misled in the main, and intention- 
ally misleading in the exceptions. We wonder how 
they can pin their faith to their church in the way they 
do. Yet circumstances, over which they have no con- 
trol, led them naturally into the Catholic church — cir- 
cumstances gave them Catholic parentage, and sur- 
rounded them with Catholic influences. No Protestant 
can reasonably doubt that had he been born and reared 
under the same circumstances, he would now be a 
Catholic ; and there are probably not ten in a thousand 
Catholics who would not be Protestants had they been 
born and bred under Protestant influences. Now, 
while this fact should make no difference in the estima- 
tion in which each holds the other's system of religion, 



The Pozver of Circumstances. 127 

it should dispossess them at once and forever of all bit- 
terness of feeling toward each other, and of the self- 
righteous assumption of superiority. 

It would be relevant to allude to political parties in 
this connection, but it is not necessary. The same fact 
holds good, in a general way, with relation to all the 
great subjects that divide men into opposing masses. 
It may be well, however, to say that in the matter of 
social position, so far, at least, as it is based in birth, 
there is no cause of glorying on the part of any man. 
Two children play together, and grow up together. 

One is the offspring of a man of wealth and high social 

I 

standing. The other is the son or daughter of a la- 
borer, poor, and, perhaps, ignorant. One of these chil- 
dren comes in time to look down upon his humbler 
neighbor, and the other is brought to feel, sooner or 
later, that he is proscribed. What makes these chil- 
dren to differ ? Nothing but circumstances over which 
neither had a particle of control, yet one of them gets 
proud in his adventitious position — proud of his circum- 
stances. Circumstances, ordered by Providence, doubt- 
less, grade society through all the steps that reach from 
the bottom to the top of it. This fact may be recog- 
nized — all the classes of society may be recognized — 
and yet between each class there cannot legitimately 
be a particle of bitterness, of envy, of jealousy or of 
pride. 

Again, to leave this class of generalizations, let us 



128 Gold- Foil. 

instance a lad in the city born of drunken parents, and 
trained to familiarity with the observation and the prac- 
tice of vice from the earliest conscious moment of his 
life. He is a beggar at six, a thief at ten, a drunk- 
ard at twelve, a libertine at sixteen, and a murderer at 
twenty. Another lad is born in a quiet country home, 
with a Christian father and mother. His whole training 
is in the direction of virtue. As soon as he can speak, 
he is taught to pray. He is carefully guarded from all 
vicious influences, educated in the atmosphere of a pure 
and self-sacrificing love, becomes the possessor of a lofty 
Christian purpose, and, at thirty, finds himself by the 
side of the poor convict boy of the city, endeavoring 
to prepare him for the change of worlds which will 
come with his execution. What makes the lives of 
these two men differ so widely ? What, but circum- 
stances ? I do not say that this city boy is, in his his- 
tory, the representative of all the vicious men and 
women in the world, but he is, in many respects, the 
representative of the larger part of them, as the coun- 
try boy is the representative of the larger part of the 
virtuous. How ought this fact to open wide the arms 
of our pity and our charity toward those whose steps 
are bent toward ruin i How inconsiderate is that self- 
righteous contempt and abhorrence with which a vir- 
tuous world regards those who only needed favoring 
circumstances to make them pure and worthy as itself. 
The truth is, that the great brotherhood and sister- 



The Power of Circumstances. 129 

hood of sin groan under the uncharitable judgments of 
those who, but for circumstances interposed by other 
power than their own, would have been among their 
number. These judgments may not be unjust, but they 
are uncalled for. They may be just, coming from Him 
who sees the heart, but they are illegitimate, proceed- 
ing from those whom kinder circumstances have aided 
to preserve. I say they groan under these judgments. 
They feel bitterly in regard to them, and they will ac- 
cept no beneficent ministry at the hand of the good 
until they receive the sympathy to which they believe 
themselves entitled. Any man who approaches this 
class in an attempt do them good, with censure on his 
lips, and the assumption of a self-won and self-preserved 
righteousness in his bearing, will find, to the cost of his 
mission, that every heart is closed against him. There 
is a basis of brotherhood and tender sympathy in this 
connection of circumstances with the development of 
character and life, and on this basis every man must 
stand who would raise the fallen, strengthen the weak, 
and reclaim the erring. 

Leaving classes, we come to individuals. The orange 
that is too hard squeezed yields a bitter juice. Here 
and there, in the path of our observation, we see men 
and women who, having lived good and reputable 
lives, yield to some sudden and overwhelming tempta- 
tion, and fall with a crash that startles our hearts with 

terror. Some man whom, through a life of strict in- 
6* 



130 Gold- Foil. 

tegrity, we have regarded as a model of honor and 
honesty, suddenly stands before the world condemned 
as a defaulter, a swindler, a forger. Did it ever occur 
to you to stop for a moment, and think what a band of 
circumstances must have conspired against, and what 
temptations must have assailed him, even to lead him 
one step towards the resistance of conscience, the sacri- 
fice of his peace of mind, the forfeiture of his good 
name, and the danger of the surrender of his personal 
freedom ? Did you ever pause in your judgment, and 
attempt to measure the solitary, secret, hand-to-hand 
conflict with the devil by which he was at last dis- 
armed, baffled, and ruined ? Did you ever attempt to 
realize the fact, that if you had been in his place you 
might have fallen like him ? Do you sit coldly above 
the fallen man, and, with the unthinking w r orld, con- 
demn him ? Ah ! pity him ; pity him. Pray that you 
enter not into temptation, and, while you hold his sin 
in horror, remember that kinder circumstances and 
smaller temptations have probably saved you from his 
fate. 

Some gentle girl, full of all sweet hopes and bright 
with innocent beauty, gives her heart to one who is 
unworthy of her. She yields him her faith to be be- 
trayed, her love to be abused, her trust to be deceived. 
Enslaved by circumstances, shorn of will by the blind 
devotion of her passion, ensnared by the toils of one 
whom she believes incapable of wilful wrong, she wakes 



The Power of Circumstances. 131 

from her mad dream a ruined woman. What have you 
to say to her, or to say about her ? God forgive you, if 
you, man or woman, can stand over the prostrate crea- 
ture from whom hope has departed, and breathe into 
her ears words of condemnation and scorn ! Why are 
you, woman, who read these words, better than she ? 
Madame, Maiden, the straightest stick is crooked in 
water. Condemn her sin if you will, hold it in abhor- 
rence as you must ; but when, with beseeching look, 
she comes into your presence, her self-righteous ac- 
cusers around her, remember how the Christ that is in 
you impels you to delay judgment, and, while revolving 
the pitiful circumstances of her fall, to stoop humbly 
and write that judgment in the sand. 

The track upon which the train of human reforma- 
tion runs is laid in sympathy, and this sympathy can 
never be established so long as there exists in the heart 
of virtue the same feeling of hatred towards the sinner 
that is felt towards the sin. The world will accept and 
can have no Saviour who has not been tempted and 
been surrounded with circumstances that exhibited to 
him the measure of human weakness. A being must 
be tempted "in all points like as we are" before we 
can give him our hand to be led up higher. The soul 
that does not appreciate the power of temptation has 
no mission to the tempted. It is a law of the heart 
that it will not accept the ministry of natures that have 
no sympathy with it. Go the world over and select 



132 Go Id- Foil. 

those preachers who have the greatest power over men 
— power to move them in high directions, and power 
to attract them with strong and tender affections — and 
they will, without exception, be found to be those who 
betray hearts and experiences that show that they are 
sympathetic with the tempted. The exceedingly proper 
young men who graduate from the theological institu- 
tions, in white cravats and white complexions, are men 
who have little power in the world, as a general thing. 
The world knows at once that such men know nothing 
of its heart ; but when it finds an earnest, Christian 
worker, who has passed through the fire, and exhibits 
the possession of what we are wont to call " human 
nature," it turns to him with the feeling that he has a 
right to teach it. 

There are a great many brotherhoods in the world, 
but none so large as the brotherhood of temptation and 
untoward circumstance. A race of beings find them- 
selves in the world without any act of their own, in 
circumstances not of their own choosing — some better, 
some worse — and all the subjects of temptation. The 
riddle of life is unsolved. The meaning of their rela- 
tions to that which tends to degrade them is not com- 
prehended. Now the situation of this race is, to me, 
one of touching and profound interest. With a God over 
its head and a law in its heart that hold it to accounta- 
bility, and with appetites and passions within, and cir- 
cumstances and temptations without, urging, coaxing, 



t The Power of Circumstances, 133 

driving it to transgression — what a spectacle is this for 
angels and for God ! Yet here we all are, struggling, 
toiling, falling, rising, hoping, despairing. Now, if this 
great fact, of common subjection to evil influence, do 
not give us a basis for a common sympathy, I do not 
know what other fact in God's world does. Doubtless 
the brotherhood of true Christianity is a purer tie than 
this, but it is a less human tie and more divine. 
Doubtless the love proceeding out of a pure Christian 
spirit is a stronger motive of labor for the elevation of 
men than this sympathy, but uncoupled with it, it can 
accomplish but little. This brotherhood is first to be 
recognized ; this sympathy is first to be felt, before a 
Christian purpose with relation to the race can be in- 
dulged with any practical effect for good. 

I stand by my kind ; and I thank God for the temp- 
tations that have brought me into sympathy with them, 
as I do for the love that urges me to efforts for their 
good. I hail the great brotherhood of trial and temp- 
tation in the name of humanity, and give them assur- 
ance that from the Divine Man, and some, at least, of 
His disciples, there goes out to them a flood of sympathy 
that would fain sweep them up to the firm footing of 
the rock of safety. I assure them that there are hearts 
that consider while they condemn, and pity where they 
may not praise — that there are those even among Chris- 
tian men and women, who feel attracted toward them as 
they cannot feel attracted toward the self-righteous and 



134 Gold- Foil. 

uncharitable men and women who have named the 
name Ineffable, and claim a place upon the rolls of the 
redeemed. I can never fail to remember that whatever 
I possess of good, of light, of liberty, of love, has come 
to me mainly on the wings of circumstances, and that a 
greater portion of the evil, the ignorance, the bondage 
and the hate that I see all around me was borne to 
those who hold and exhibit them by the same purvey- 
ors. I come not between God's law and man's account- 
ability, but I take the great fact as I find it, that life, 
in the main, follows the line of its original lot, as a 
basis of sympathy on which I stand with one hand in 
the hand of all humanity, and the other pointing hope- 
fully toward the stars. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ANVILS AND HAMMERS. 

" When you are an anvil, bear ; when you are a hammer, strike." 
"There is never wanting a dog to bark at you." 
"An honest man is not the worse because a dog barks at him." 
"He laughs best who laughs last." 

EVERY man in the world who gives blows must 
take blows. Every man who occupies the position 
of a positive force, bearing upon the thought and life of 
the world, is a hammer that, more or less, must submit 
itself to the fulfilment of the office of an anvil. Those 
whom he assails, or the supporters of that which he as- 
sails, will turn up his face, and undertake to straighten 
their crooked nails on it, or refasten the rivets of their 
broken cisterns on it, or pound the wrinkles out of their 
battered opinions on it, or punish it with spiteful inden- 
tations. The perfection of art with such a man is to 
'strike heartily when he assumes the office of a hammer, 
and bear bravely when he is compelled to be an anvil. 
Until a man becomes as good an anvil as he is a ham- 
mer, he fails to be thoroughly fitted for his work. 



136 Gold-FoiL 

What an indurate old anvil Martin Luther was ! He 
smote errors and abuses and sins with blows that sent 
their resonant echoes through all the centuries. He 
was a moral sledge-hammer, assailing a system that 
shook through all its rotten timbers ; but that system 
and its defenders returned his assaults, and tested his 
resistance and endurance. The diet of Worms made 
an anvil of him ; and the kind of steel he had in him 
was manifested in his reply to the friends who under- 
took to dissuade him from going to Worms to be ham- 
mered : " Were there as many devils in Worms as 
there are roof-tiles, I would on ! " That was the way of 
Luther, the anvil. 

The hammer and the anvil are the two hemispheres 
of every true reformer's character. They are, in fact, 
the two aspects of every leader, let him be never so 
high, or never so humble. Every man who strikes 
blows for power, for influence, for institutions, for the 
right, must be just as good an anvil as he is a hammer. 
If he is not, he may properly conclude that he has no 
very important mission in the improvement and pro- 
gress of his race. If private and instituted sin, error, 
prejudice, and wrong, would be kind enough to stand 
quietly and let us batter in their sides, or knock them 
down, reform would become a fine art, with great at- 
tractions for men of weak constitutions and gentle 
pedigree ; but they always object to this mode of treat- 
ment ; and any man who attacks them must calculate 



Anvils and Hammers. 137 

on his power of resistance, or his power to bear with- 
out flinching the blows he will receive in return. A 
pugilist, who is an inferior hammer, not unfrequently 
wins a fight, in consequence of being a superior anvil. 
If victory were always with the hammer the French 
would always be victorious ; but the anvil won at 
Waterloo. 

But the blows which a reformer receives in direct 
response to his own are not always the hardest things 
he has to bear. Many become so hardened to these 
that they rather enjoy them. Direct and powerful op- 
position is a kind of compliment to the assailing power, 
and demonstrates fear, or the consciousness of damage, 
on the part of the assailed. Every system and institu- 
tion of wrong, error, and sin, has its defenders ; but, be- 
yond these, it has adherents and friends in multitudes, 
who, being unable to enter the lists as champions, re- 
sort to smaller and meaner arts of enmity. There is 
never wanting any number of dogs to bark at an honest 
man. Now this playing the part of an anvil, and being 
the object of the vocal demonstrations of a popular 
quadruped, are two very different things. Many a 
man can withstand the fiercest blows of an individual, 
who will shrink from the barking of the people. Many 
a man can give blows valiantly and receive them brave- 
ly, who is made very nervous and miserable by clamor 
about his heels, and spiteful feints at the terminal por- 
tions of his trousers. In fact, there is nothing which 



138 Gold- Foil. 

a true man cannot bear, provided he is conscious of 
possessing the sympathy of the people. 

When a reformer utterly loses, or fails to gain, the 
sympathy of the people, strong indeed must be his 
conviction, profound indeed must be his charity, and 
vital must his faith and purpose be, if he can still strike 
lustily in their behalf. Oh ! how few enter upon a 
career of reform, in whatever department of life, and 
come out of it uninjured ! How few are able to battle 
through a lifetime with the errors and sins of society, 
and escape unembittered toward those whom they 
have endeavored to benefit ! How few can close a 
life of self-sacrifice, — misconstrued, misrepresented and 
abused, — with the immortal words, welling up from a 
heart of love still full and overflowing, " Father, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do ! " 

I suppose that indifference to direct opposition and 
popular clamor, even if in some sense desirable, is im- 
possible in a nature worthy of any good work. Every 
man who becomes the subject of these should, how- 
ever, guard himself against the consequences to which 
I have alluded. Every man should guard himself 
against a waning faith in humanity. Moral forces 
move slowly, partly from their nature and the compli- 
cation of their processes, and partly from the lack of 
social sympathy among the masses of men. The most 
that a reformer can hope to do in his short life is to 
introduce a leaven into society which shall at length 



Anvils and Hammers. 139 

work the elevation lie desires to effect. He can rarely 
move masses to his will by the immediate exercise of 
power, because there are, in sympathy, no such things 
as masses of men. There are loosely bound aggrega- 
tions of individualities, but no masses through which 
runs so thorough a sympathy that action upon one will 
be action upon all. It must be remembered that a man 
may apparently have all society against him, and yet 
be engaged in a work which will certainly and thor- 
oughly revolutionize its opinions and habits. An air- 
line railroad, running straight through home-lot and 
garden and dwelling, through hill and valley and 
meadow, will throw everybody upon its course into 
wild confusion during the progress of its construction ; 
and were we to sympathize with the clamor of those 
with whose private interests it temporarily interferes, 
we should unite with them in calling it a curse. But 
when, after long preparation, and great individual 
labor and sacrifice, it is completed, and the cars com- 
mence their regular trips, the abutters upon the road 
adapt themselves to it, reap gladly and gratefully its 
advantages in the appreciation of their estates, and 
learn to regard it as a blessing which they cannot spare. 
There are many good reasons why a reformer 
should be slow to lose his faith in humanity. The first 
and most obvious is, that there is always involved in 
this loss the loss of faith in God and in himself. I have 
yet to see the first reformer who has lost his faith in 



HO Go Id- Foil. 

men — who has become sour and bitter toward his fel- 
lows — who has not also ceased to be a religious man. 
The religious anniversaries in the great cities nearly 
always are accompanied by gatherings of men who, 
having exhausted their faith in their fellows, and be- 
come bankrupt in charity, meet to pour into one an- 
other's ears, and into the ears of a curious multitude, 
the horrid discords of their blatant infidelity. The re- 
former feels, too, that he comes into any general judg- 
ment of his kind. If he do not feel this fully, he at 
least loses faith in his power over men, and, disap- 
pointed, sinks back into fretfulness over the failure of 
his mission, and the miscarriage of his life. 

Another reason why a reformer should be slow to 
lose faith in men, is because they cannot at once un- 
derstand him. They have lost faith in leaders, and for 
good cause. Leaders have been accustomed to use 
them for the accomplishment of selfish purposes. Thus, 
when a new leader arises, it takes them a long time to 
become fully assured of his motives. As there are al- 
ways men enough whose selfishness leads them to mis- 
construe these motives, it may sometimes require many 
years for a man to vindicate himself and secure confi- 
dence. There is no justice in blaming the people for 
this cautiousness : they have been deceived too often, 
and would be fools were they not to exercise it. A re- 
former has no right to expect immediate reception into 
the confidence of the people. They must be satisfied 



Anvils and Hammers. 141 

with the motives of him who undertakes to lead them, 
measure his ability, sound the depths of his charity, and 
intellectually comprehend his plans before they ought 
to consent to be guided by him. It is no more than 
just to say, that every reformer who has lost his faith in 
men, and become embittered by the loss, proves that 
the judgment of the people upon his character is just. 
He undertook a task for which he was not fit, and the 
people found him out. 

A stronger reason still for the preservation of faith 
in men, is, that the more intractable and unreasonable 
they may be, the greater their need of reformation, and 
the larger draft do they make upon faith. Faith in hu- 
manity, under divine guidance and blessing, is the hope 
of the world. Christianity comes to us with no com- 
pulsory processes. It has faith in itself, doubtless ; but 
without faith in men it would never have come, or 
never would have made its appeal to voluntary choice. 
All powers that have no faith in men act by compulsion, 
or by circumvention. There can be no action upon 
will — no motives of action presented to voluntary 
choice — that do not proceed upon the basis of faith in 
humanity. The moment we lose this faith our efforts 
are paralyzed, and we turn railers and accusers. A man 
who desires to benefit his fellows cannot proceed a sin- 
gle step without faith in those whom he would benefit. 
No matter how bad men may be, there must be, on the 
part of him who would reform them, the faith that there 



142 Gold-Foil. 

is something in them which will respond to the truth 
when it can be brought into contact with their judgment 
and conscience, or he can do absolutely nothing. 

The people owe a duty to all who come to them with 
the professed wish to do them good. A man is not 
necessarily bad because a dog barks at him, and an 
honest man is never the worse because a dog barks at 
him. If you will look over your town, your state, your 
country, you will readily select the names of those 
against whom there is more or less of popular clamor. 
You will recall here and there names that are names of 
reproach. You shrink from association with those who 
bear them. If you enter their presence, you enter sus- 
piciously, as if you feared a taint, or guiltily, as if you 
thought them conscious of the contempt in which you 
hold them. You think, because there is so much out- 
cry against them, there must be something bad in them. 
Now, no considerate, generous man will join in this out- 
cry, or allow it to prejudice him toward its objects. It 
is, I believe, the general rule, that these men are men 
of power — of genuine, progressive ideas — men who have 
an errand of good to their race. 

Look back over the past, and see how many of those 
whom the world once abused are the world's idols. 
Who are the preachers whom you most delight to 
hear ? Have they not, at some time in their history, 
been the objects of the world's outcry, and of yours, 
too ? Look at the ballots which you carry to the polls 



Anvils and Hammers. 143 

with confidence, and perhaps with unlimited enthu- 
siasm. Do they not bear the names of men whom you 
once verily believed to be the incarnations of selfish- 
ness and demagogism ? Think of the statesmen, hunted 
to their graves by the hounds of popular clamor, who 
are now enthroned among the nation's immortals. Re- 
member all the men against whom you have joined in 
denunciation, and whom you have learned to respect, 
if not to love, by getting near to them, and obtaining 
a look into their honest hearts and a vision of their de- 
voted lives. Look over the whole track of history, and 
see how every one who ever did great good in the 
world has been the object of the world's maledictions, 
and then be careful how you join in an unreasoning out- 
cry against any man. 

While the world should be more careful and consid- 
erate in its treatment of those who come to it with a 
mission of good, the reformer himself should be very 
patient with the world. He must not only retain his 
faith in it, but he must not be in too great a hurry to 
be understood and accepted. He must draw close to 
the world, where it can look into his heart, and the 
world should draw close to him, until it is rationally 
satisfied that he has nothing for it. The efforts of op- 
posing forces, backed by the indorsement of the un- 
reasoning multitude, should throw no worker for the 
world off his poise, nor should they deprive him of the 
honest judgments of those who think. No true man 



144 Gold-Foil. 

will ever be in haste to vindicate himself before the 
world by direct efforts for that end. He has faith in 
men, and that gives him faith in the ultimate judgments 
of men. He lives, and speaks, and acts, and he is con- 
tent to let his life, his words, and his actions speak for 
him. By them he knows that, sooner or later, the 
world will judge him, and he is content. Show me a 
man who gets excited and uneasy under popular clamor, 
and betrays his unhappiness and anxiety by frequent 
private or public explanations and justifications, and 
you will show me one who is not to be trusted. He 
has not the spirit nor the stamina for his work. But 
he who goes straight forward, confident in his own mo- 
tives, true to his own convictions, and calmly trustful 
of the ultimate issue of his efforts and his life, is of the 
true metal, and one may be sure that there is something 
good in him. 

He laughs best who laughs last. The wheels of 
progress do not stop. The world advances toward and 
into a better life, and will advance until, leaving the 
hard, clumsy and jarring pavements of the marts of 
selfishness behind, it will strike off joyously into the 
broad avenue of the millennium. No man can be a 
true worker for human good who does not believe that 
the cobble-stone pavement has an end, and that there 
is an avenue ahead where it will be his turn to enjoy 
himself. He believes that the time will come when 
what he is doing, and has done, will be accepted at its 



Anvils and Hammers. 145 

true value. He may be laughed at now ; he may be 
scoffed at and scorned ; his motives may be maligned ; 
he may be hammered by opposition and barked at by 
popular clamor ; but he knows that sometime in the fu- 
ture it will be his turn to laugh, and he is confident that 
he will laugh last and laugh best. He knows that God 
will prove to be a good paymaster, and he believes that 
the world will, in the long run, be just. 

If any man propound ideas in advance of the world, 
the world, in its progress, will come up to them, as cer- 
tainly as the world continues to exist, and then, if not 
before, it will remember. Those who cherish truth 
and stand by the right, must be at warfare with those 
who hold to falsehood and to sin. There is no con- 
scription in this war. It is a voluntary service on both 
sides, and neither is in want of cowards. There is a 
contemptible, quiet path for all those who are afraid of 
the blows and clamors of opposing forces. There is no 
honorable fighting for any man who is not ready to for- 
get that he has a head to be battered and a name to be 
bespattered. Truth wants no champion who is not as 
ready to be struck, as to strike, for her. The eye that 
can see the triumph of that which is good in the world 
from afar, the heart that can be certain of victory, 
though now in the sulphurous thickness of the fight, 
can afford present contumely and even present defeat. 
The bearer of such a heart and eye knows that, sooner 
or later, the time will come when he and the band to 
7 



146 Gold- Foil. 

which he belongs shall celebrate a final victory over all 
that oppose them — that they shall come home from the 
contest " with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
heads." He knows that the last shout will be his, and 
that the severer the conflict the heartier will that shout 
be. Ah ! what peans of triumph, what sweeps of ma- 
jestic music, what waving of banners, what joyous tu- 
mult of white-robed hosts, shall greet him who goes 
home, worn and weary, to take a crown worthily won 
in the contest with error and with wrong. May that 
crown be yours and mine ! 



CHAPTER Xiy. 

EVERY MAN HAS HIS PLACE. 

"You stout and I stout, 
Who shall carry the dirt out?" 
11 Every man cannot be vicar of Bowden." 
" He that cannot paint must grind the colors." 

WHO shall be vicar of Bowden and who shall 
carry the dirt out — who shall paint and who 
shall grind the colors — are questions which, in various 
forms, have agitated the world since human society- 
existed. Dissatisfaction with position and condition is 
well-nigh universal. Every man walks with his eyes 
and wishes upwards — some moved by aspiration for a 
nobler good, others by ambition for a higher place ; 
some by emulation of a worthy example^ others by dis- 
content with the allotments of Providence. The in- 
fant does not forget to climb when he learns to walk, 
nor is the man less a climber than the boy. Every 
thing is towering, or climbing, or reaching, or looking 
upward. The elm stretches its feathery arms and 
waves its hands toward the clouds that hang over it ; 



148 Gold- Foil. 

the vine pulls itself up the elm by its delicate fingers ; 
and the violet sits at the foot of the vine and looks up 
and breathes its fragrant wishes heavenward. Even 
the sleeping lakelet in the meadow dreams of stars, 
and will not be satisfied without a private firmament 
of water-lilies. It is as if God had whispered into the 
ear of all existence, the moment it was emerging from 
nihility, the words — "look up!" and, hardly knowing 
why, it had been looking up ever since. Well, this is 
right ; for, far above every thing shines the great 
White Throne — sits the Father Soul — abide the treas- 
uries of all good — burns the uncreated fire at which the 
torches of life are lighted. It is a natural, instinctive 
thing to look upward. 

Discontent may be a very good thing, or a very bad 
thing. There is a discontent which is divine, — which 
has its birth in the highest and purest inspirations that 
visit and stir the soul. All that discontent which grows 
from dissatisfaction with present attainment, or springs 
from a desire for higher usefulness, or has its birth in 
motives that impel to the worthy achievement of an 
honorable name and an honorable place, is a thing to 
be visited by blessings and benisons. Discontent 
which comes from below — which comes from a soul 
disgusted with its lot — a soul faithless in God, and out 
of harmony with the arrangements and the operations 
of Providence, is an evil thing — only evil — and that 
continually. One holds the principle of love ; the 



Every Man has His Place. 149 

other of malice. One is attracted from above ; the 
other is instigated from below. One tends to the de- 
velopment of a symmetrical, strong, and harmonious 
character ; the other to disorganization and deprecia- 
tion. One is from heaven, the other is from hell. 

I look out of my window, and see a carriage rolling 
by, with its freight of richly-dressed ladies. On the 
coach-box sits a man who drives the horses when they 
go, and opens the door of the carriage and lets down 
the steps when they stop. Further up the street there 
is a building going up. The architect stands by with 
his hand in his breast, giving directions. The hod- 
carrier, smeared with mortar, passes him, climbs the 
giddy ladder, and drops the bricks upon the scaffold- 
ing, and these, one after another, are driven to their 
places by the ringing trowel of the bricklayer. I rise 
from my seat, and walk through the rooms adjoining 
my own. Here sits an editor, hastily putting together 
the thoughts that will form to-morrow's leader. At 
another table sits another editor, culling from a pile of 
exchanges bits of intelligence that come in on a thou- 
sand paper wings from other communities. At their 
cases stand the compositors, setting up, type by type, 
the matter which the editors prepare for them. The 
pressman and the engineer have their respective parts 
to perform. I find the great aggregate of life to be a 
net-work of duties — an organized system of duties. In 
order to secure the comfort of the whole, there is a 



1 50 Gold-Foil. 

certain amount of work to be done, infinitely various 
in kind. There must be an architect to plan, there 
must be a hod-carrier to bear mortar, and a bricklayer 
to lay the bricks, or we shall have no buildings. There 
must be an editor, and a compositor, and a pressman, 
or there will be no newspaper. Who shall do the 
thinking, and who shall perform the manual labor ? 
Who shall paint, and who shall grind the colors ? 
Every man cannot be vicar of Bowden. 

It does not suffice to tell discontented people that 
every man has his place, and will find his highest ac- 
count in seeking to fill it, and to fill it well. What 
particularly troubles them is, that they were made for 
so low a place. They really call God's wisdom and 
benevolence in question for assigning to them subordi- 
nate offices in operating the machinery of society. A 
man finds himself distinguished by clumsy hands and 
broad shoulders, with a hod on his back, and complains 
that he was not made for a bricklayer ; and the brick- 
layer wishes he had the ease and the honor of the 
architect, and wonders why his power of achievement 
is so closely circumscribed. The coachman rubs down 
his horses, and marvels that he was not born to their 
ownership, and that the owner was not born to drive 
for him. So people quarrel with their position, the 
world over. Every thing in the world is unequal to 
these people. They do not see the impartial justice 
of conferring upon one man great mental faculties, 



Every Man has His Place. 151 

pleasant address, and commanding presence, while 
another is condemned to be a dwarf, both in mind and 
body, and to serve his more highly- favored neighbor 
that he may win bread and raiment. 

Well, there is all this work to do : who shall do it ? 
A link broken in the chain will spoil the chain. There 
are all these places to fill : who shall fill them ? I fill 
a subordinate office in the world : why should not you ? 
Is there any good reason why you should be vicar of 
Bowden, and the vicar of Bowden should tend a toll- 
bridge, or conduct a railroad train ? Since these 
things are to be done by somebody, you and I may as 
well take the part that comes to us, and perform it. 
It is not best to stop the wheels of society on our pri- 
vate account. If you and I have had any injustice 
done to us in the assignment of our duties, it will not 
mend any thing to fasten our ill-fortune upon some- 
body else ; and you and I are not the men to skulk, I 
think. Genuine, manly pluck and good nature will 
settle much of this difficulty. If our advance involve 
nothing more than a change of places with others, it is 
not exactly the manly thing to whine about our lot. 

But there is a better and a broader basis for the 
settlement of this matter than this ; and did we pos- 
sess even a modicum of the faith in God that we ought 
to possess, we should feel certain there would be such 
a basis, though we might fail to find it. The instinc- 
tive, persistent search of the soul is for happiness. We 



152 Gold- Foil. 

seek for office, or place, or wealth ; we pine over the 
fact that our mental endowments and acquisitions are 
comparatively indifferent or positively mean ; and why ? 
Because, while we lie dreaming upon our pillow of 
stone, the places and positions of life shape themselves 
into a ladder on which angels ascend and descend, the 
last round leaning on a heavenly landing ; because that 
which is above us, in allotment, gift, and acquisition, 
forms so many steps of the gradatory that leads from 
the cells where we do penance, to the temple where we 
expect peace and heavenly communion. In other 
words, we are discontented because we believe there 
is more happiness on the upper steps of society than 
on ours ; and here is where the great mistake is made. 
If there be any thing which human history teaches 
more thoroughly than any other thing — if there be any 
fact revealed to observation more clearly than any 
other fact — it is, that happiness does not depend upon 
condition and position — that it has its birth in posses- 
sions and relations superior to, and in most respects 
unaffected by, those facts of individual and social life 
which divide men into classes. Here is where the 
Good Father equalizes human lot. High position, con- 
sidered by itself, is not a positive good — is not, in and 
of itself, a source of happiness to the souls planted upon 
it. There is no good reason to be found in the whole 
universe of God why the coachman should not be as 
happy as the dainty ladies whom he serves. There is 



Every Man has His Place. 153 

no reason why the hod-carrier may not be as happy as 
the bricklayer, and the bricklayer as happy as the 
architect. Wants keep pace with wealth always. 
Responsibility walks hand in hand with capacity and 
power. Of him to whom much is given much will be 
required. Posts of honor are evermore posts of danger 
and of care. Each office of society has its burden, pro- 
portioned to its importance ; so that men shall find no 
apology for murmuring at the better lot of their neigh- 
bors, while all are made dependent for happiness upon 
common sources — open alike to him who wears fine 
linen and fares sumptuously every day, and the beggar 
who waits at his gate. 

I am inclined to think that if our minds were capa- 
ble of apprehending the essential facts of the life we 
see, we should be convinced that happiness is one of 
the most evenly distributed of all human possessions. 
The laborer loves his wife and children as well as the 
lord, and takes into his soul all the tender and precious 
influences that flow to him through their love as well 
as he. Food tastes as sweetly to the ploughman as the 
placeman. If the latter have the daintier dish, the 
former has the keener appetite. Into all ears the brook 
pours the same stream of music, and the birds never 
vary their programme with reference to their audiences. 
The spring scatters violets broadcast, and grass grows 
by the roadside as well as in the park. The breeze that 
tosses the curls of your little ones and mine is not softer 
7* 



154 Gold- Foil. 

in its caresses of those who bound over velvet to greet 
it. The sun shines, the rain falls, the trees dress them- 
selves in green, the thunder rolls, and the stars flash, 
for all alike. Health knows nothing of human distinc- 
tions, and abides with him who treats it best. Sleep, 
the gentle angel, does not come at the call of power, 
and never proffers its ministry for gold. The senses 
take no bribes of luxury ; but deal as honestly and gen- 
erously by the poor as by the rich ; and the President 
of the United States would whistle himself blind before 
he could call our dog from us. 

If we examine this matter critically, we shall find 
that the sweetest satisfactions that come to us are those 
which spring from sources common to the race. If you 
and I are worthy men, that which is most precious to 
us, as the material of our daily happiness, is precisely 
that which is not dependent upon the positions we re- 
spectively occupy in' the world. Now, if we look above 
this range of common Providence into that realm of 
fact, in which abides our common relationship to a 
common Father, the distinctions of society and the va- 
riety and contrariety of human lot fade away and be- 
come contemptible. If God smile on me and fill my 
heart with peace ; if he forgive my sin, and give me 
promise and assurance of a higher life beyond the 
grave ; if He call me His child, and draw out from my 
cold and selfish heart a filial love for Him ; if He in- 
spire me with a brotherly charity that embraces in its 



Every Man has His Place. 155 

arms all who bear His image ; if He give me a hope 
more precious to me than all gold, and transform the 
narrow path in which I walk into the vestibule of Heav- 
en, it will very naturally be a matter of indifference 
to me whether I paint, or grind the colors — whether I 
carry dirt, or officiate as the vicar of Bowden. If we 
were all made in His image ; if we are all held amena- 
ble to the same law ; if we all have offer of the same 
salvation ; if we are all to be judged according to our 
deeds ; if we have the promise of the same heaven on 
the same terms, it shows at least, what God thinks of 
human distinctions. 

The ministry of nature, and love, and sympathy, 
are common to all men. On the broad platform of 
morals, the king stands uncovered by the side of the 
peasant, and wealth and place flaunt no titles and claim 
no privileges. In religion, all men kneel and worship a 
common Lord. Men are placed in different positions 
in this world simply because there is a great variety of 
work to do, and no one man can do all kinds. If you 
and I have found our places — if we find ourselves en- 
gaged in doing that thing which, on the whole, we can 
do better than any thing else, then low discontent with 
our lot is not only sinful, but mean. God gives to you 
and to me just as many sources of innocent happiness 
as he has given to anybody, and opens to us just as fair 
a heaven as he has opened to anybody. It becomes us, 
therefore, to fill our places, and do our particular duties 



1 56 Gold-Foil. 

well, hold up our heads in front of every man with self- 
respectful complacency, do honor to the office which 
God has selected for us, by a faithful performance of 
its functions, and take and pocket contentedly the 
penny a day which we get in common with others. 
The Creator doubtless knew what weak, unreasonable, 
and inconsistent creatures we should be when he made 
us ; but if you and I had made a world full of people, 
and set them at work with pledge of even pay and 
equal privilege in all essential good, and they had set 
themselves to erecting artificial distinctions among 
themselves, and gone to whining over the parts we had 
assigned to them, we should be exceedingly disap- 
pointed, not to say disgusted. 

Still, we may all look up. There are steps to be 
climbed in life, but we can only climb them worthily 
by becoming fit for the ascent. It is only after becom- 
ing prepared for important places, through the educa- 
tion involved in the intelligent and faithful discharge 
of the duties of the place in which we find ourselves, 
that it is best, or even proper, that we be advanced. 
It is not those who pine and whine, and quarrel with 
their lot, who are apt to change it for one which the 
world calls better. Aspiration, worthy ambition, de- 
sire for higher good for good ends — all these indicate a 
soul that recognizes the beckoning hand of the Good 
Father who would call us homeward toward himself — 
all these are the ground and justification of a Christian 



Every Man has His Place. 157 

discontent ; but a murmuring, questioning, fault-finding 
spirit has direct and sympathetic alliance with nothing 
but the infernal. So while God gives you and me the 
privilege of being as happy as any other man, and 
makes us responsible for nothing more than he gives us, 
let us be contented, and, 

" Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait." 



CHAPTER XV. 

INDOLENCE AND INDUSTRY. 

44 Idleness is the sepulchre of a living man." 
44 Constant occupation prevents temptation. 11 
11 Idle men are the Devil's play-fellows." 
44 Business is the salt of life." 

HUMANITY is constitutionally lazy. I have yet 
to see the first child take naturally to steady 
work, or the first young man look forward with no de- 
sire to an age of ease. There are multitudes of men 
who love work, but they have learned to love it, and 
have learned that they are made truly happier by it. 
We are all looking forward to some golden hour when 
we may "retire from business," read the newspapers at 
leisure, drive a pair of steady bay horses, walk to the 
post-office with a well-fed belly and a gold-headed cane, 
and be free. I do not believe that any man ever be- 
came thoroughly industrious, save under the impulsion 
of motives outside of the attractions of labor. We 
labor because it is necessary for us to labor for suste- 
nance, or to achieve an object of ambition, or because 



Indolence and Industry. 159 

idleness is felt to be a greater evil than labor. The 
number of potatoes unearthed in the world " for the fun 
of it," would not feed a flock of sheep. In fact, I be- 
lieve that God made us lazy for a purpose. He did not 
intend that we should have any thing but air and water 
costless. If labor were a pleasure, we should have 
really to pay for nothing, and, as a consequence, we 
should prize nothing that we have. All values have 
their basis in cost, and labor is the first cost of every 
thing on which we set a price. But labor has a higher 
end than this, and I will try to reveal it. 

Every man and woman is born into the world with a 
stock of vitality which must be expended in some 
way. It may be breathed out in unnecessary sleep, or 
appropriated wholly to the digestion of unnecessary 
food, and a good deal of it runs to waste in these ways. 
It may be expended in sport and in play, it may be ex- 
hausted in sickness, or it may be applied to labor. 
This vitality is naturally a restless principle. In the 
boy, to whom existence is fresh, we find it unchained, 
and betraying itself in antics and races, and foolhardy 
feats, and various play. It impels him to exercise and 
activity in all places and at all times. This vitality is 
alike the basis of mental and muscular power. Forth 
from it proceeds, all action whatsoever. When we pos- 
sess it, we live ; when it leaves us, we die. 

This vitality is, then, the matrix, as it is the meas- 
ure, of inherent power ; yet one man with a given 



160 Gold- Foil. 

stock of vitality may have a hundred times the practi- 
cal power of another man whose stock of vitality is the 
same, the reason being that the organs of action, 
through which vitality manifests itself, and by which it 
works, are better trained in one case than in the other. 
Use is the condition of development of all the powers 
of the body and the soul. Facility of action comes by 
habit. A man from any outside profession, obliged to 
write a daily brace of leaders for the newspaper, would 
break down in six months, while the accustomed editor 
would not find himself fatigued beyond his wont. The 
greatest mind in the nation would find itself perplexed 
and exhausted in the attempt to make a horse-shoe, 
while some humble apprentice of the smithy would 
make one of superior excellence with comparative ease. 
The greater the facility that may be acquired in the 
use of organs and faculties, the smaller the draft will 
be upon the vitality that feeds them. The reason why 
some men accomplish so much more than others is not, 
generally, that they have more vitality than others, 
but that the facility of labor which use and habit have 
given them enables them to do more without vital ex- 
haustion. 

Now life means but little unless it means that we 
are in a state of education — a condition in which our 
powers and faculties are to be educed. If we are not 
in training for something, this life is one of the most 
serious of all practical jokes. Labor in all its variety, 



Indolence and Industry. 161 

corporeal and mental, is the instituted means for the 
methodical development of all our powers, under the 
direction and control of will. Through the channels 
of labor this vitality is to be directed. Into practical 
results of good to ourselves and others it is all to flow, 
and those results will prescribe the method which we 
need. It is to secure this great end of development 
that the prizes of life are placed before us as things to 
be worked for. When we get these prizes, they seem 
small; and, intrinsically, they are of but little value. 
They are, in fact, little better than diplomas that testify 
of long labor, worthily performed. Still before us rises 
worthier good, to stimulate us to harder labor and 
higher achievement. Still the will urges on the organs 
of the body and the faculties of the mind till that habit 
which is second nature gives them the law of action, 
and employment itself becomes its own exceeding great 
reward. 

Still, the most industrious of us feel, at times, that 
we are laboring by compulsion. Often both the spirit 
and the flesh are unwilling and weak. We are goaded 
to labor by need. We are urged to labor because we 
cannot enjoy our leisure. We labor because we are 
ashamed to be idle. Many a man, bowed down by his 
daily toil, looks forward to the grave for rest ; and 
far be it from me to tell him that he is looking and 
hoping for that which he will never experience. I do 
not believe there will be any hurry in eternity, or any 



1 62 Gold- Foil. 

such necessity of labor as we have here. If I have a 
competent comprehension of the spiritual estate, it will 
tax us but little for. food and clothing ; and if the labor 
to which we devote ourselves here shall train us to 
facility in the use of our powers, the work that will be 
given to us to do there will be something to be grate- 
ful for. We shall have all the rest we want. A sleep 
of a century will make no inroads upon our time, if we 
need any such sleep. But I have an idea that when 
the clogs are off, and the old feeling of youth comes 
back, we shall be glad to have something to do, and 
that the use of powers which labor has trained under 
the direction of will for worthy ends will be everlasting 
play, as keenly enjoyed as the play of the restless boy. 

It is only as we look upon labor in this light that 
we understand its real value and significance. If the 
prizes we win here are all the reward that labor brings, 
it pays but poorly. But labor, like all the passages 
through which God would lead our life, is full of inci- 
dental rewards. The man who carves the channel of a 
laborious life, taps the springs of tributary joys through 
every mile. Health is an incident of powers well 
trained and industriously employed. Self-respect wells 
up in the heart of him whose energies, under the con- 
trol of his will, are directed to worthy ends. Popular 
regard crowns him who is a worthy worker. The 
sleep of the laboring man is sweet, and none but he 
knows the luxury of fatigue. Temptation flies from 



Indolence and Industry. 163 

the earnest and contented laborer, and preys upon the 
brain and heart of the idler. Labor brings men into 
sympathy with the worthy men of the world. So, 
there is enough of joy to be found in labor, if we will 
only mark its source, to encourage and content us, even 
if the great end of labor be somewhat hidden from us, 
as it doubtless is from multitudes of men. 

This vitality of which I have been talking will find 
vent somewhere. If, under the direction of the will, 
it is not taxed for the support of methodical labor, it 
will demonstrate its nature in irregular ways. Wherever 
we find a profession or calling, excellence in which de- 
mands great vital power, and exercise in which taxes 
that vital power but little, or only for brief periods of 
time, there we shall find vitality seeking demonstration 
through the passions. No person can be a great sing- 
er, a great actor, a great orator, or a great writer, 
without great vitality. In the case of the singer, the 
actor and the orator this vitality, absolutely necessary 
for great success, is only subject to draft on occasions. 
In the lives of all these people there are long intervals 
of repose, in which the unused energies seek expendi- 
ture. As a natural consequence, they are subject to 
great temptations, and their lapses from virtue are no- 
torious. I would traduce no class of persons in the 
world. There are among these classes as pure and 
noble men and women as are to be found in any class, 
and the purer and nobler because their virtue costs 



1 64 Gold- Foil. 

them something. There is always something peculiarly- 
dangerous in a calling that requires great vitality at 
irregular intervals ; and the followers of such callings 
should understand the philosophy of their danger, and 
guard themselves with peculiar care. 

This will illustrate very well the influence of idle- 
ness upon the morals. There are those in the world 
upon whose vitality labor makes no draft whatever. 
They are not subject even at intervals to legitimate 
expenditures of vitality ; but they have it, and, unless 
impotent in will or imbecile in passion, that vitality 
will have expenditure. No truly Christian man can be 
truly an indolent man. He must necessarily have es- 
tablished legitimate channels of methodical, vital ex- 
penditure, or his Christianity will be a very weak affair. 
There is really nothing left to an idle man, who pos- 
sesses any considerable degree of vital power, but sin. 
A man who has nothing to do is the devil's play-fellow. 
He has no choice in the matter. He can find no sym- 
pathy anywhere else. Good men find nothing in him 
congenial. Industrious men have no time to devote 
to him, and would have no sympathy with him if they 
had. All the decent world is in league against an idle 
man. Everybody despises him, whether he be rich or 
poor. Everybody feels that he is a nuisance — that he 
is a sneak, who refuses to employ the powers with 
which he has been endowed, and declines to contribute 
his quota to the support of the race. He is driven by 



Indolence and Industry. 165 

the very necessity of his position into secret or open 
vice, and he finds in obedience to the calls of tempta- 
tion the only delights that season an otherwise insipid 
life. 

Idleness is the sepulchre of a living man. A man 
whose will refuses to direct the vitality within him into 
regular channels of labor — who simply feeds and sleeps, 
or nurses his passions and his appetites — whose highest 
satisfaction comes from sense — is dead and buried. 
Of what use is such a man in the world, to himself or 
others ? If he will not work, he is a burden upon so- 
ciety, even if he prey upon a pile of inherited wealth. 
That wealth, if he were out of the way, would pass into 
better hands ; and the world has need of it for its work- 
ers. No man has a right to be idle if he can get work 
to do, even if he be as rich as Croesus, simply because 
he cannot be an idle man without injury to. himself and 
to society. He destroys his own happiness, buries his 
powers of usefulness, and furnishes to the world a pesti- 
lent example. 

If any rich young man read these words, I have 
something of importance to say to him. Your father, 
either by business enterprise or family inheritance, is 
rich. You know the amount of his wealth, and you 
know there is enough of it to support you while you 
live, without labor. Here is a great temptation. As 
I have said before, humanity is constitutionally lazy ; 
and when you see how severely the prizes of life are to 



1 66 Gold- Foil. 

be struggled for, you naturally shrink from the sharp, 
and, what seems to be, the unnecessary, competition. 
There is also, perhaps, in your mind, a prejudice against 
labor. It may not appear to you a very genteel thing 
to tie yourself to a daily round of duties. You like .to 
be independent, and to show that you are so. Now 
be very careful here, or you will make the great mis- 
take of your life — a mistake which some day you will 
be willing to give all your wealth to recall. I know 
that you cannot be happy without fulfilling the end of 
your being, and so do you. I know that you cannot 
fulfil the end of your being without the thorough de- 
velopment of your powers by the regular, systematic 
expenditure of your vitality in labor. I know that un- 
less you do this, time will be left upon your hands to 
be dreamed away alone, or inflicted as a bore upon 
others who have something to do, or to be filled up by 
ministry to appetites which will degrade you. So I 
say to you, never dream, for a moment, of a life of 
idleness. Such a life will curse you and injure others. 
Such a life is as unmanly as it is ungodly. It has no 
redeeming feature and no apology. Have a profession, 
or a calling, of some kind, which shall make a regular 
tax upon your powers. Only in this way can you be 
reasonably safe from low temptations, acquire self- 
respect, secure the esteem of men, and place yourself 
in sympathy with this working world. 

I know that there are many who are obliged to 



Indolence and Industry. 167 

work too hard — whose vitality is taxed beyond measure, 
and beyond the profit of the organs and faculties by 
which it is expended. While this fact is partly owing 
to the multiplicity and extravagance of artificial wants, 
it might be greatly modified by a more universal adop- 
tion of the habit of labor. The burdens of the world 
are unequally borne. A great* multitude live without 
labor ; they are drones in the hive. A still greater 
multitude live by their wits ; and over all this country 
— never more than at the present time — is there a dis- 
position to gain wealth out of the regular channels of 
business. The real motive of this mode of acquiring 
wealth is the desire to get it without earning it — of 
legally gaining possession of what others have earned 
by the sweat of their brows. Nearly all the popular 
modes and means of speculation are modes and means 
of legal gambling. Not a dollar is produced in the 
world that is not either taken from the ground, or 
pulled from the sea by somebody ; and it is a shameful 
fact, that the popular means of winning wealth contem- 
plate its acquisition without a particle of labor be- 
stowed upon its production. I do not believe that 
wealth won in this way is the right way. There is a 
legitimate business of mediation between producers and 
customers, and a legitimate line of service to both, but 
further than this, all those who seek for wealth without 
adding a grain to the general stock, are leeches, 
sponges, nuisances. 



1 68 Gold-Foil. 

There is a more honorable way. There are legiti- 
mate offices of service to the world for which the world 
will pay well ; and, in one of these, at least, every man 
should have a place, and there do the work of his life, 
winning competence as he will, and wealth if he may. 
Wealth, legitimately acquired, is valuable, and it is only 
valuable when thus acquired. Honest labor for the 
world is the only true basis of wealth, and the grand 
prerequisite for its enjoyment. I have said that every- 
body looks forward to the time when he can retire from 
business. There may be something in this beyond the 
natural laziness of men, or their desire for ease. It 
may be that some intuition of the soul overleaps its 
earthly life, and, seeing the heavenly goal but dimly, 
plants its reward of labor on this side the river, when 
it should be placed among the gardens upon the other 
bank. Be that as it may, retiring from business has 
most commonly proved a disastrous operation. 

There are old men and old women whose work of 
life is really done, and who may in peace and content 
sit down and wait their mysterious transit. We love 
these weary workers, and bid them be happy. But a 
man who retires from business before the work of life 
is done, in the full possession of his powers, retires from 
happiness and health. His stock of vitality is unexpend- 
ed ; and uneasy and discontented must his life be, un- 
less that vitality find an outlet through legitimate chan- 
nels. A life of active business carves deep channels, 



Indolence and Industry. 169 

and it is very hard to change them. Better far to die 
in the old harness than to try to put on another. But 
all may look forward to an age of leisure, lying in the 
unknown land, where powers, trained to ease of action 
by labor, will find themselves fed by a vitality immortal 
as that in which abide the springs of all power. 
8 






CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SINS OF OUR NEIGHBORS. 

" You have daily to do with the Devil, and pretend to be frightened at 
a mouse." 

" Don't measure other people's corn by your own bushel." 

THERE is little in the conduct and condition of 
men that is not the subject of a false valuation, 
and I can imagine nothing, save larger hearts and more 
plentiful brains, that would be of so much use to the 
world as a catalogue of sins, arranged upon an intelli- 
gible scale, so that their comparative enormity might 
be settled at a glance. Such a catalogue might serve 
a good purpose, generally, perhaps, by pointing out the 
real sinners of the world, and thus bringing the mate- 
rials of society to their true level ; but its chief bene- 
fits would inure to those who are in the habit of over- 
estimating their own virtues, under-estimating their 
own vices, attaching fictitious importance to the sins of 
others, and clothing in the crimson of crime acts and 



The Sins of our Neighbors. iji 

practices as harmless and sinless as the prattle of chil- 
dren, as well as to those who 

" Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

There are men, for instance, who attach a peculiar 
merit to the entertainment of a certain set of theo- 
logical opinions — who entertain those opinions very de- 
cidedly, and maintain them wonderfully well, while 
they make dissent an absolute sin, and regard dissenters 
with pity and contempt. There are men who judge 
their neighbors with great uncharitableness ; who drive 
hard bargains ; who gamble in stocks ; who are self- 
righteous and censorious ; who fail in tenderness to- 
ward God's poor ; who never pay what they ought to 
pay for the support of the religious institutions to 
which they are attached, yet who would consider a 
social dance in their own parlor a terrible sin, and a 
game of whist a high crime that should call down the 
judgments of Heaven. There are men who stalk about 
the world gloomy, and stiff, and severe — self-righteous 
embodiments of the mischievous heresy that the religion 
of peace and good-will to all mankind — the religion of 
love, and hope, and joy — the religion that bathes the 
universal human soul in the light of parental love, and 
opens to mankind the gates of immortality — is a re- 
ligion of terror — men guilty of misrepresenting Christ 
to the world, and doing incalculable damage to his 



172 Gold-Foil. 

cause, yet who find it in them to rebuke the careless 
laughter that bubbles up from a maiden's heart that 
God has filled with life and gladness. 

This fallacious estimate of the respective qualities and 
magnitudes of sins has not only blinded the reason and 
befooled the conscience of the world, but it has spoiled 
its language by parallel processes of exaggeration and 
emasculation. Little words, that legitimately repre- 
sent little things, have become monstrous words, repre- 
senting monstrous things. Great sins have pleasant 
words attached to them, which serve as masks by which 
they find their way into good society without suspicion. 
Individual notions — no bigger than a man's hand, at 
first — have spread themselves into overshadowing ec- 
clesiastical dogmas. Phrases have been invested by the 
schools with illegitimate meanings and deceptive sanc- 
tity. The age is an age of words, and is ruled by 
words rather than things ; and there is hardly one of 
them that has not shrunk from its original garments, or 
outgrown them. Men are saved by words, and damned 
by words. Religion rides the nominal and casuistry 
the technical ; and the unfortunate wight who does not 
get out of the way will be crushed by words, or run 
through by a fatal phrase. 

The religious newspapers of the day are full of 
quarrels about words — quarrels instituted in the name 
of the Prince of Peace, and carried on for the benefit 
of the Prince of Darkness — quarrels over non-essential 



The Sins of our Neighbors. 173 

matters of opinion — quarrels growing out of rivalries 
of sects — quarrels fed by the fires of human passion — 
quarrels maintained by the pride of opinion and by the 
ambition for intellectual mastery — quarrels whose only 
tendency is to disgust the world with the religion in 
whose behalf they are professedly instituted, and to 
fret, and wound, and divide the followers of Jesus 
Christ. Yet these same religious papers will deplore 
the personal collision of two drunken congressmen in 
the streets of Washington as a sad commentary on the 
degeneracy of the age, and moralize solemnly over a 
dog-fight. They can lash each other with little mercy 
— they can call each other names, abuse each other's 
motives, misconstrue each other's language, criminate 
and recriminate, but faint quite away with seeing a cart- 
horse overwhipped, or a race-horse overtasked. They 
have daily to do with the devil, and pretend to be 
frightened at a mouse. 

What is true of the controversial religious news- 
papers, is true, I fear, of a great many Christian men 
and women. They have pet sins — poodle sins — with 
silky white hair — sins held in by a social collar and a 
religious ribbon — that bark at good honest dogs, or 
imaginary dogs, although their little eyes are red with 
the devil that is in them. As sectarians, they are given 
to slander. They speak disparagingly of those who 
differ with them in belief. They judge uncharitably 
those who engage in practices which only their particu- 



174 Gold- Foil. 

lar dictionary makes diabolical. They blacken a mul- 
titude of good deeds by dipping them into bad mo- 
tives of their own steeping. Now, if I were called 
upon to decide which, in my opinion, is the least sinful 
in itself, and the least demoralizing in its tendency — 
the traducing of one of Christ's disciples by another of 
Christ's disciples, or engaging in or witnessing a horse- 
race—I should turn my back on the traducer and shake 
hands with the jockey. 

I know men not religious, who bear about an ex- 
ceedingly sensitive idea of honor that scorns all little- 
ness and meanness and trickery — chivalrous men — 
reliable men — men really of pure lives and honest and 
honorable impulses — yet men so warped in their reason 
and their moral nature that they will follow their party 
leaders through all the treacheries, perjuries, and in- 
nominable rascalities that party leaders, driven to des- 
perate straits, can invent ; who stand squarely up to 
the endorsement of deceit, injustice, robbery, and mur- 
der ; who pamper and patronize the most brutal and 
dangerous elements of society, and who give money to 
be used for party purposes that they have no reasona- 
ble doubt will be directed to the corruption of the bal- 
lot-box. I know women of delicate instincts and really 
modest natures who turn the cold shoulder to a fallen 
sister — passing her with a shuddering sense of pollu- 
tion — yet who gladly associate with, and even marry, 
men who are notorious for their infamous gallantries — 



The Sins of our Neighbors. 175 

yielding to the salute of the seducer the lip that curled 
with scorn in the presence of his victim. 

I have dealt thus far in matters of fact. They are 
patent ; everybody apprehends them. I will go still 
further in these matters of fact, and declare that it 
may be recorded, as a rule pretty universally reliable, 
that a man or woman who is particularly severe upon 
the minor sins of mankind — who lacks compassion for 
the fallen, and consideration for the weak and tempted 
— carries, nine times in ten, a large sin, with a little 
name, in the sleeve. Those who see much to find fault 
with in others, and who are prone to magnify and 
dwell upon the shortcomings of their neighbors, are 
those who have an interest in depreciating the life and 
character around them. Men do not work for nothing. 
They work for pay ; and when I see one who seems 
particularly desirous of depreciating others, I know it 
is only for the purpose of bringing them down to the 
mean standard which he is conscious measures his own 
life. 

Is this uncharitable ? I think not. Is it not al- 
ways the purest woman who is the last to suspect im- 
purity in other women, the most unwilling to believe 
ill of her neighbor, the first charitably to palliate the 
offences of those who fall, and the first to give them 
the hand of sympathy ? Is not the Christ within them 
always saying — " Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and 
sin no more ? " Is it not always the noblest man who 



176 Gold- Foil. 

deals the easiest with the foibles of his neighbor ? Is 
it not always the best man who is busiest with looking 
after his own sins, and who has neither time nor dispo- 
sition to discover and denounce those of others ? Is it 
not always the most Christlike Christian who esteems 
others better than himself, and who modestly regards 
his own heart as altogether untrustworthy ? I think so. 

" Who art thou that judgest another man's ser- 
vant?" Who gave you authority to measure other 
people's corn by your particular bushel ? Who gave 
you liberty to thrust forward your fallible judgment, 
your warped and weak reason, your little notions, your 
uncharitable heart, your long and lathy creed, and your 
rule of life taken at second hand, and badly damaged 
at that — as the standard of the great world's life ? 
Why will you be always sallying out to break lances 
with other people's wind -mills, when your own is not 
capable of grinding corn for the horse you ride ? 
Doubtless the world is wicked enough, but it will not 
be improved by the extension of a spirit which self- 
righteously sees more to reform outside of itself than 
in itself. Doubtless there are great sins, practised by 
multitudes of men, but they will hardly be diminished 
by those who bring into the enterprise of extermi- 
nation a greater amount of baggage than they can 
defend. 

It so happens, in the great economy of life, that 
there is but one thing by which men may legitimately 



The Sins of our Neighbors. 177 

be judged ; and that is the heart. It so happens, also, 
that only the Being who made it is capable of judging 
it. If we are determined to measure every thing de- 
veloped by the life around us by our own bushel, let us 
first of all go to the divine standard, and get our bush- 
els " sealed." Let us endeavor to apprehend some- 
thing of the infinite love which flows out unmeasured 
from the Father's heart to every creature proceeding 
from the Father's hand. Let us recognize that essen- 
tial fact in the human constitution which renders uni- 
formity of belief and faith with relation to all truth, 
and identity of action from identity of motive, im- 
possible. 

There are no twin souls in God's universe. Each 
stands alone in its relation to each particular truth 
within the range of its apprehension. In the field of 
life, each has its standpoint, from which it observes, 
and at which it receives impressions from all the facts, 
persons, and phenomena of the field. This round world 
of ours rolls ceaselessly in the sea of light poured from 
the exhaustless fountains of the sun. All around it, 
thick-strewn with stars, bends the blue firmament. It 
seems to every man as if he were standing in the centre 
of the world. The heaven that swells above him, 
skirted by a horizon that may be narrow or broad, is 
the true heaven. The constellated lights that rise and 
set upon his vision have relation to him as a kind of 
sentient centre. That which is up, is necessarily above 



178 Gold- Foil 

his head, where his sun shines and his moon sails ; that 
which is down is beneath his feet ; and he can hardly 
conceive why his antipodes do not die of apoplexy, or 
drop out of the system of things into the ethereal abyss. 
So this world of human life revolves, a perfect sphere, 
in the eye of God. So embracing it all around — a 
fathomless heaven at every angle and aspect — sweeps 
the firmament of his love, on which eternal principles 
glow with steady flame, holding to rhythm and har- 
mony the constellated truths which wheel around and 
among them. It doubtless seems to every soul that it 
sits in the centre of all this great system of things — 
that God is directly above it — that the essential truths 
which have relation to life are those, and only those, 
that come within the range of its vision ; and it won- 
ders how other souls can possibly live and thrive while 
looking out upon God and the firmament of love and 
truth from other points of vision. Yet, as a matter of 
fact, all Christian men see the same sun, and the same 
heaven of truth — only they see them from different 
angles. 

I am aware that the two subjects which I have as- 
sociated together in this article only touch each other 
at certain points ; but those are important ones, and 
justify that which might otherwise appear far-fetched 
and arbitrary. My aim has simply been to arouse the 
mind of the reader to a more just and impartial estimate 
of those acts denominated sins, and to refer the minds 



The Sins of our Neighbors. 179 

of those who are inclined to sit in judgment upon 
their fellows, to the legitimate standard of judgment. 
A man does not necessarily sin who does that which 
our reason and our conscience condemn. A man is 
not necessarily in error who entertains views and 
opinions widely different from ours. We are constantly 
prone to fix arbitrary values upon our own good deeds, 
and to exaggerate evils that we see in other systems of 
belief, and the sins that we see in other men. The 
true Christian toleration is doubtless that which grows 
out of true Christian love. Essential Christian brother- 
hood is doubtless based in the common possession and 
entertainment of the divine life, though that life exists 
amid error and sin and ignorance, through the wide 
range of differing beliefs. But if we cannot have these 
realized as we would have them, we can have some- 
thing which counterfeits them, and it is better on the 
whole, than nothing. We can have a charity growing 
out of a common consciousness of weakness, shortsight- 
edness and sin, and a brotherhood of common imper- 
fection. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE CANONIZATION OF THE VICIOUS. 

" Carrion crows bewail the dead sheep, and then eat them." 
"'Ladies have ladies' whims,' said Crazy Ann, when she draggled her 
cloak in the gutter." 

" The dog gets into the mill under cover of the ass." 
" He that spares vice wrongs virtue." 

AS there is one class of men in the world which is 
interested in magnifying the sins of others, so 
there is another, hardly less numerous, bent upon mak- 
ing the sins of others respectable. Out of this disposi- 
tion and policy sprrng many of the celebrations of the 
birth-days of men whose lives have successfully asso- 
ciated splendid genius with ungovernable passions, great 
intellectual achievements with detestable vices, and ad- 
mirable works with weak or wicked lives. So far has 
this been carried, that there exists, more or less defi- 
nite, in the public mind, the impression that great genius 
and low morals are generally found together, and that, 
in some way, the former justifies, and in some in- 
stances, even glorifies, the latter. A drunken physician 



The Canonization of the Vicious. 181 

is supposed to be very much better than any other phy- 
sician, " if you can only catch him when he is sober," 
and it is imagined that there is somewhere a mysterious 
but very fruitful connection between the disposition to 
sottishness and skill in the treatment of disease. 

I believe it is universally conceded that " the Man 
Christ Jesus " lived a purer life than any other man, 
sympathized with the poor and the lowly as no other 
man ever sympathized, did more for the comfort and 
the elevation of the humble and the wretched than 
any other, impressed himself upon the civilization of 
the world beyond all predecessors and successors, and 
revealed a religion which, overarching all the elabora- 
tions of human philosophy, imparts to them whatever 
of significance they possess, and holds in itself alone 
the power of regenerating humanity ; but, outside of 
the Church, there are none who, of their own motion, 
meet to celebrate his birth-day. I have never heard of 
the celebration of the birth-day of John Milton, the 
great bard who sat in darkness, and evolved his more 
than mortal dreams, and who, grappling with immortal 
themes, wrested from them immortality for himself and 
the language in which he wrote. I see no tributes paid 
by the world to the memory of Montgomery. I never 
had the opportunity of drinking a toast to the gentle 
Christian, Cowper, or filling a bumper to Isaac Watts, 
whose lyric muse has given wings to more hearts bur- 
dened with praise and surcharged with aspiration than 



1 82 Gold- Foil. 

that of any other man since the sweet singer of Israel. 
I have never had an invitation to a dinner given to the 
memory of Howard, whose life was one of Humanity's 
most touching poems ; or attended a supper in honor 
of Martin Lather. I find the great of the world — who 
were good in their greatness and great in their good- 
ness — pretty generally let alone by the men who are 
accustomed to express their obligations to those who 
have been pre-eminent in government, literature, and 
art, while the memory of men whose weaknesses called 
for an extra cloak of pity, and whose vices made sight 
drafts on all the ready charity in the market, were 
toasted to the echo. 

No great man who has scandalized his age by his 
personal vices, or done violence to the avowed princi- 
ples of his public life by a great apostasy, can fall with- 
out drawing to his funeral all the apostates around him 
— men clinging to him by the sympathy of vice and 
falsehood, and using that sympathy as a platform wh'ich 
shall elevate them into the respectability which his 
genius won for him. Even the manes of Tom Paine is 
annually summoned into the congenial atmosphere of 
the banquet-hall, to make respectable by its power and 
fire an infidelity and libertinism which stink in the nos- 
trils of a Christian nation, and which otherwise would 
suffocate themselves in their own effluvia. 

Everybody knows how it is with the memory of 
Burns. It cannot well be doubted that more revellers 



The Canonization of the Vicious. 183 

assemble every year to celebrate his memory, through 
sympathy with the steaming whiskey which he loved so 
well, than with the aroma of his genius . ' ' Poor Burns ! " 
they exclaim; "what a pity he drank!" "Gifted 
Burns ! Child of Nature ! Let us forgive him that his 
gifts were not dedicated to the promotion of the purity 
which hallows the names of mother, sister, and wife ! " 
"Sad dog, that Burns! True, he loved wine and 
women; but then, didn't he suffer for it? Let us com- 
passionate him. He wasn't so much to blame, after all. 
The only wonder is how a man, with the tremendous 
fireworks he had in him, did not blow up with the first 
flash of a woman's eyes that smote him." And thus, 
the carrion crows bewail the dead sheep, and then eat 
them. Thus, with cloaks covered with the mud of the 
gutter, they flock together to contemplate the mud that 
a prostituted genius has gathered upon its garments, 
and foster their self-complacency by charitably trans- 
muting its sins into whims. Thus the dogs endeavor 
to get into the mill under cover of the ass. 

One of the most mischievous and fallacious of the 
current notions of an easily erring world I conceive to 
be that which makes the possession of great gifts, and 
the achievement of great works, an offset to, or an 
apology for, indulgence in vices which compromise in- 
dividual and social purity, and outbreaks of passion 
that come within the cognizance of the police. I believe 
that I respect all there is to be respected in the memory 



1 84 Gold- Foil. 

of Burns; but he was a weak — in many respects a 
vicious — and, in most respects, a miserable — man. He 
was the slave of a debasing appetite, and though, at 
brief intervals, he surrendered himself to the higher 
and purer inspirations that floated down to him from 
heaven, he loved to put them aside, and envelop him- 
self in an atmosphere of sensuality. If he had a manly 
sense of manhood, wakened into life by the arrogance 
of wealth and place, it found its issue in words and not 
in life. It was the outburst of a protesting impulse 
rather than the self-assertion of a principle standing in 
the centre of the motive forces of his being. 

Burns has left enough upon record to show that he 
possessed the subtlest apprehension of all that is noble 
in religion, all that is sweet and pure in woman, all that 
is strong and fruitful in manly virtue, and all that is 
praiseworthy in individual and national character. His 
best poem, " The Cotter's Saturday Night," is a reve- 
lation, clear as light, of his knowledge of goodness, and 
his convictions touching that which is noblest and 
truest in life. By a kind of necessity, he and all the 
brotherhood of vice-enslaved genius have been made 
to reveal such a degree of knowledge of the truest 
truth and the best goodness, that all apology for their 
inconsistent and inconstant lives must be gratuitous. 
If great men have great passions, they have great 
minds with which to regulate and keep them in subjec- 
tion ; and in the degree in which God has given them 



The Canonization of the Vicious. 185 

power to move the hearts and attract the admiration 
of men, are they bound to teach, by word and pen, and 
exemplify by life, that which is truest and best in their 
convictions, and divinest in their faculties. 

There is an abundance of vice in the world that le- 
gitimately calls for our charity, but it is not that which 
is associated with such genius as fully apprehends the 
beauty and the claims of virtue. Goethe is one of the 
great — Goethe " the many-sided man, " Goethe, the 
man of science, the poet, the philosopher — yet his life 
was almost an unmitigated nuisance. If he ever failed 
to be a curse to a woman with whom he was thrown 
into association, it was not because he failed in effort 
for that end. The beast that was in him toyed through 
more than a filthy half- century with the most delicate 
instincts and the most sacred sympathies of the female 
nature. Yet there are those who beg us not to judge 
Goethe too harshly — who bid us remember the power 
of his passions and the license of the age in which 
he lived. It is a competent answer to this plea to say 
that Goethe was as cool a man — a man as thoroughly 
under self-control — as any whose history we know, 
and that he flagrantly scandalized even the age which 
is thrust forward as his apology. I say, that to treat 
such a life as his with any thing softer than downright 
execration — to drape it with the velvet of charity, and 
trim it with silky apologies, is an outrage — direct and in- 
defensible — upon the cause of virtue in the world. 



1 86 Gold- Foil. 

While vice is made venial when associated with 
transcendent powers ; while tributes of honor are of- 
fered to the memory of lives perverted, by men who 
have a covert interest in making perverted lives re- 
spectable ; while even good men allow their admiration 
of genius to soften their judgments upon its prostitu- 
tion, and substitute for a well-earned condemnation, a 
magnanimous gratuity of pity, it will not be strange if 
men with smaller intellects find excuse for such license 
of appetite and passion as they may see fit to indulge in. 

Our literary Pet got drunk, and sang about it, in a 
rollicking way, and we weep and smile as we think of 
the debauchee, and say, " Poor Pet ! " Tom Jones 
gets drunk, and we kick him as he lies in the gutter, 
refuse to recognize him when he gets upon his feet, 
and blame the police if he fail to get into the watch- 
house. Our Pet, armed with the enginery of a smooth 
tongue, well practised in all the arts of intrigue and 
deception, besieges the citadel of a woman's heart, 
and, standing once within it, sets it on fire, and lays it 
in ashes. We sigh, and say, " Sad Pet ! " Tom Jones 
betrays the confidence of his neighbor's daughter, in 
imitation of Our Pet's example, and gets his brains 
blown out, and we say it served him right. Our Pet 
was improvident. He spent his money without a 
thought of the debts he owed, or the cash he had bor- 
rowed ; and we say, " Unfortunate Pet ! He did not 
seem to know any thing of the value of money ! " Tom 



The Canonization of the Vicious. 187 

Jones borrows money, runs in debt and forgets to 
pay ; and we conclude that the rascal has no very acute 
sense of moral obligation — in fact, that Tom Jones is a 
swindler. Now, I have an idea that a moral code that 
is good enough for Our Pet is good enough for Tom 
Jones, and that Tom Jones has good cause of complaint 
when treated more harshly by the decent public than 
his great exemplar. 

I cannot help thinking that the indulgence with 
which great men are treated by the world, in their 
moral obliquities and eccentricities, has much to do in 
making them what they are. An unprincipled man of 
genius who can achieve and maintain power over the 
minds of good men, independently of his moral charac- 
ter, and secure at the same time the sympathy and sup- 
port of bad men, by participating in their vices, will 
always do both. The prevalent disposition which I see 
on all sides to make heroes and martyrs of the infamous 
great, amounts to a premium on all that is despicable 
and horrible in unbridled ambition and limitless lust. 

How many hearts have been turned in sympathy and 
affection toward the character and life of one who sacri- 
ficed u*pon the altar of his rabid ambition hecatombs of 
his countrymen, and filled all Europe with the wails 
and curses of widows and orphans, — of one who had no 
God higher than Fate, acknowledged no leader but 
Destiny, and who, in following her, put to shame all of 
manhood in mankind by trampling under his feet a true 



1 88 Gold-Foil. 

heart and a sacred vow, that the Devil might give him 
the child that God had denied him ! What will the 
effect of this be upon ambitious natures, but to prove 
that a man has only to use all of the world he can lay 
his hands on for selfish ends, to secure the services of a 
Christian eulogist ? Even Aaron Burr, the infamous 
traitor, murderer, and libertine, finds a man to speak 
well of him — praise only assuming the significance of a 
harmless joke, in consequence of the freshness of the 
stench which his memory has left behind him. 

Over all that realm, where high or humble mind is 
struggling honestly with the great problems that con- 
cern its spiritual life and its immortal destiny — strug- 
gling toward the light through devious ways of error — 
I would see a, broad-winged liberality spread its lumi- 
nous shadow. To all those whose education in the 
truth has been limited, whose circumstances of life 
have been adverse to the development of purity, who 
are weak and ignorant, and low in instinct and aspira- 
tion, I would extend a charity that pities while it 
blames, and considers while it condemns. But to sin 
in high places — among men and women who are 
crowned kings and queens in the realm of intellect — 
those whose brows have been lifted into God's own 
light, and whose tongues and pens reveal something of 
the divinity which struggles to enthrone itself in them 
— no excuses, no palliations, no patronage. Over a 
great, bad life, let us sigh once, and then be silent ; 



The Canonization of the Vicious. 189 

and when we choose among the memories of memorable 
men for the subject of a public tribute or a personal 
eulogy, let us take one out of which shall spring in- 
spirations to a pure life, and motives to a noble heroism. 
When we choose heroes for deification, let them at 
least believe in the God that made them, and present 
a life for delineation and contemplation unblotched by 
all the sins forbidden by the Decalogue. 

He who spares vice or apologizes for it in the high 
places of the world, wrongs virtue in every place. He 
helps the good to look upon it leniently, and thus to 
lower the tone of morality within themselves. He as- 
sists the bad to make it respectable, and thus to give 
them warrant and license in its imitation, and even in 
its emulation. He discourages virtue in the humble 
and poor — the great masses who form the real basis of 
society, and upon whose goodness and truth the state 
must rely for its character before the world, and its 
stability in the world. He disturbs the moral appre- 
hensions and unsettles the moral balance of all to whom 
his words and influence come. Let us braid no more 
wreaths to hide the mark of Cain on the brow of mur- 
der. Let us send up no more clouds of incense to veil 
the front of shame. The intellect will bow, if it must, 
but let it be with a protesting tongue and arms closely 
folded over the heart ! 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SOCIAL CLASSIFICATION. 

"When the crane attempts to dance with the horse, she gets broken 
bones." 

"Like plays best with like." 

"It is dangerous to eat cherries with the great; they throw the stones 
at your head." 

"Like seeks like — a scabbed horse and a sandy dike." 

THERE is a very general entertainment of the fal- 
lacy that all the distinctions of society are arti- 
ficial. I call it a fallacy, because I believe it to be 
susceptible of proof that the most of them are natural. 
The aristocracy of a town or state is always founded 
upon what the majority of the people of such town or 
state hold to be the chief good. No class arrogates to 
itself the aristocratic position without the accordance, 
tacit or declared, of all classes. Wherever noble family 
descent is popularly regarded as the most honorable of 
all things, aristocracy is founded upon blood. Wher- 
ever high intellectual culture is accounted the most 
honorable of all possessions, the aristocacy will be 
composed of savans, poets, artists, and men and women 



Social Classification. 191 

of brilliant parts and attainments. So, too, where 
money is regarded universally as the chief good, alike 
by rich and poor, the aristocratic element will reside in 
wealth. It would be easy to cite specimens of these 
varieties of aristocracy. I suppose that Paris, as the 
representative of France, furnishes an instance of the 
aristocracy of talent and culture ; that London repre- 
sents England in its aristocracy of blood, and that New 
York represents America in the aristocracy of wealth. 
In each of these types there is a blending of the other 
two. The three herd together, more or less, but the 
nucleus is distinct in each, and the other elements crys- 
tallize around it. 

So I say that the aristocracy of any country is noth- 
ing more than a declaration, in conventional form, of 
that country's sentiment and opinion upon the chief 
earthly end of man. Every aristocrat is made such by 
a popular vote ; and by the same vote is he endowed 
with all the privileges, immunities, pride, supercilious- 
ness, and exclusiveness which are supposed to pertain 
to the aristocratic estate. It matters nothing how 
humble, genial, and good a popularly constituted aristo- 
crat may be, he gets little credit for it, for the people 
regard him as a superior, who can only be humble by 
condescension, genial for a purpose, and good by anom- 
alous exception. Having entered the charmed circle 
of those who have won the highest prize of life, his old 
friends forsake him, misconstrue him, and force him 



192 Gold- Foil. 

into aristocratic association, whether he will or no. 
There is no aristocratic class in any state possessing 
institutions measurably free, which can sustain itself for 
ten years beyond the choice and voice of the people. 

I have no idea that while human society exists 
there will fail to exist an aristocratic element, for so 
long as human society exists there will exist a popular 
ideal of a chief good, the achievement of that good by 
a fortunate few, and the association of that fortunate 
few, by natural affinity and corresponding position. 
If this class exist, other classes will exist, receding, by 
grades more or less distinctly defined, to the lowest 
figure of the scale — all measurably regulated by this 
idea of the chief good and the degree of its attain- 
ment ; measurably, I say, for there are subordinate 
standards of respectability, as well as affinities of natu- 
ral temperament and business pursuit, that come in as 
modifying influences. So I say that classes exist in 
society by a law as immutable as any law. They al- 
ways have existed, and they always will exist — their 
character determined by the character and aims of the 
people, and their relations regulated by the spirit of the 
people. 

On this track of general statement I proceed to the 
lesson of this essay. The more readily to arrive at 
this lesson, let us institute an experiment. Let us 
bring together, to form a single social assembly, repre- 
sentatives from each of the classes that we know, and 



Social Classification, 193 

see how they will get along together. Let us shut 
into a single parlor a Marquis, a savan, a Croesus, a 
farmer, a merchant, a tallow-chandler, a blacksmith, an 
Irish hod-carrier, a stage-driver, a dancing-master, a 
fop, a fool, and a fiddler. They come together for 
social enjoyment ; and the question as to how much 
of that article they will be able to obtain is that to 
which I ask an answer. All the probabilities are 
against any thing like enjoyment. There are no tastes 
accordant, no pursuits common, no habits of thought 
at all similar, no common ground of communion. I 
can imagine no other position in which any member of 
the company could be placed where he would be more 
utterly miserable. The hod-carrier would probably 
feel the worst of the whole number, and would wish 
himself a thousand times on the topmost round of a 
seven-story ladder, while only the fool would be the 
subject of envy. 

We should have, in an experiment like this, the de- 
monstration of the truth of one of our proverbs, that 
" like plays best with like." There is not, and there 
can never be social enjoyment without social sympathy. 
In all healthfully organized social life there must be 
correspondence of position, of education, of moral senti- 
ment, and of habits of thought and life — a correspond- 
ence with limits of variation which every class tacitly 
acknowledges. This sympathy is born of facts, and 
not of will. A man sees a circle with which he has had 
9 



194 Gold- Foil. 

no association ; and, as he deems its entrance desirable, 
he accomplishes his desire, only to find himself a dis- 
cordant element, and, consequently, an unhappy one. 
In short, there is a class with which each man has more 
sympathy than with any other class, — a class in which 
he finds himself the happiest and the most at home. 
Therefore he belongs in this class, socially ; and he 
will go above it, if there be any thing above it, and 
below it, if there be any thing below it, only to make 
himself, and those with whom he associates, uncomfort- 
able. 

I have frequently noticed the operation of this law 
in a large circle of women met to prosecute an object 
of benevolence, as in the sewing circles connected with 
the various religious organizations. They meet for a 
common object. They all have respect for each other, 
and a pleasant word for each other. There are no 
jealousies and no rivalries. They pass their afternoon 
and evening happily, and separate with mutual good 
feeling ; yet one who knows them all sees the secret 
of their concord, in the way in which they associate. 
Never, unless a directly opposing design, instituted for 
a purpose, interfere, do they mingle indiscriminately. 
The rooms where they meet, and even the corners of 
the rooms, are so many nuclei of crystallization, around 
which sympathetic social elements arrange themselves 
for communion and happiness. They follow the general 
law inside of their organization, just as naturally as 



Social Classification. 195 

they do out of it. Like talks best with like, laughs 
best with like, works best with like, and enjoys best 
with like ; and it cannot help it. Therefore, let like 
come together with like everywhere, nor seek to pre- 
vent it, for social position, under the general law, ele- 
vates no one and depresses no one. It is simply a 
classification of individualities, according to conditions 
and sympathies which exist independent of class, and 
which would exist all the same were they not brought 
into association. 

I have thus exhibited what I believe to be the 
rational basis of social classification — a law as certian 
in its operation as the law of chemical affinity, and one 
which I believe to be founded in unmixed benevolence. 
I have done it for the purpose of exhibiting the un- 
reasonableness and the mischief of jealousy between 
classes, and especially that entertained by classes nomi- 
nally low in the social scale toward those nominally 
high. A man in the lower class may be as good as a 
man in the higher. He may, in fact, be much better ; 
but so long as he combines with others in making the 
chief earthly good to reside in wealth rather than wis- 
dom, in gold rather than goodness, he must not com- 
plain if those who get wealth get superior position, 
while wisdom and goodness are at a discount. The 
spirit and aim of a nation inevitably fix the basis of its 
aristocracy. This nation is mad for gold, and those 
who get it will inevitably be the central and controlling 



196 Gold- Foil. 

element in the nation's highest social class. There is 
no way under heaven to change this fact but by chang- 
ing the popular aim. Make high culture or great ex- 
cellence of character the leading aim of the country, 
and then you will get your chance. All that goodness 
and wisdom enjoy of social eminence, save in special 
localities, is through the patronage of wealth. This I 
state as the general fact with relation to this country. 
In other countries, where the leading aristocratic ele- 
ment resides in nobility, or in intellectual pre-eminence, 
these respectively become the patrons of the elements 
thrown into inferior relation. 

Every man is a common centre of multiplied circles 
of association. First in order is the family circle ; em- 
bracing that is the circle of remoter kindred ; beyond 
that, at longer or shorter distances, sweeps around the 
social circle. Then comes the circle of religious fra- 
ternity ; then the political circle ; then the broad circle 
of human brotherhood, embracing family, kindred, so- 
ciety, the church, the state, and the world ; and still 
more broadly sweeping, runs the golden chain that en- 
closes each soul in the universe within the sphere of 
relation to all created intelligences. These are all 
natural circles — or circles dependent on natural law for 
their definition. Family and kindred are based in nat- 
ural affection, growing out of identity of blood. So- 
ciety is based in natural affinity and similarity and sym- 
pathy of position and pursuit. The church is formed 



Social Classification, 197 

by sympathy of religious belief ; the state by a common 
political creed and common institutions ; and so on to 
the utmost boundary of relationship. From each minor 
circle all outside of it are shut out ; yet, as the circles 
enlarge, all come upon a common level. In the state, 
we are fellow-citizens ; in the church, we are Christian 
brethren. In all our higher and more majestic rela- 
tions, the hands of mankind are joined. We sit at the 
same communion table, we bow to the same law and 
the same Lord, we cast an equal ballot. 

Now, as to the matter of duty with relation to these 
social circles ; no man should despise the circle in which 
he finds himself, but should seek to elevate and make it 
better. There are positions of power and usefulness in 
each circle, worthy of any man's ambition ; while the 
entrance to another circle, nominally higher under the 
patronage of its central, controlling element, is a disgrace 
to any man. A man willingly patronized, is a man vol- 
untarily disgraced ; and a man who seeks for respect- 
ability in a social position into which he does not nat- 
urally fall, shows himself to be lacking both in sense and 
self-respect. 

Nothing but a popular change in the standard of re- 
spectability can ever make the first social classes in this 
country what they should be ; and that change, sooner 
or later, will as surely come as the redemption of the 
world to the highest type of Christian manhood shall 
come. When manhood becomes the leading object of 



198 Gold- Foil. 

humanity, then the books of heraldry, and the diplomas 
of the schools, and the ledgers of wealth, will cease to 
furnish passports to respectability. Until that period 
shall arrive, wealth and blood and intellectual attain- 
ment, without the slightest reference to morality or re- 
ligion, as standards of character and life, will hold the 
social sway of the world. And this is right. It is as 
God made it, and would have it. It is the result of the 
operation of one of his irreversible laws. It is the popu- 
lar penalty of a popular sin. To hasten the arrival of 
that period, it should be the aim of every man, laboring 
faithfully and diligently where God has placed him, to 
elevate the standard of respectability to the place where 
God would have it. Whenever the great popular voice 
practically declares that Christian manhood is the chief 
good, Christian manhood will take its position at the 
head of the social life of this country, and of the world. 
Then, if a man be not admitted to it, it will simply be 
because he is not good enough ; for like will come to- 
gether with like, by a natural law. 

I would not say that there is no Christian manhood in 
the aristocracy of this country. I believe there is — that 
there is as much there as anywhere. I simply say that 
Christian manhood and womanhood are not credentials 
which of themselves secure high social recognition. 
They secure their position by circumstance, and not by 
character ; for the successful stock-gambler and the lib- 
ertine stand side by side with them, upon an equal foot- 



Social Classification, 199 

ing. That this fact should not be, is very evident ; that 
this fact is, is chargeable upon all classes alike ; and 
they have no just cause of quarrel with it, so long as 
they manifest no disposition to change it, by instituting 
another standard. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE PRESERVATION OF CHARACTER. 

"A full vessel must be carried carefully." 
" He is so full of himself that he is quite empty." 

" If you had had fewer friends and more enemies you had been a bet- 
ter man." 

''That is often lost in an hour which costs a lifetime." 

AN observing man is never without sources of amuse- 
ment, and it is certain that among these sources 
the unconscious devices resorted to for the creation and 
preservation of character, in the eye of the world, de- 
serve a prominent place. We meet in every town men 
who feel that they have filled up the measure of their 
character, and have nothing further to do in life but to 
bear that character, like a full vessel, to their graves, 
without spilling a drop. They walk the streets as if 
they were bearing it upon their heads. They bow to 
their acquaintances with the consciousness of their pre- 
cious burden constantly uppermost. They refrain from 
all complication with the stirring questions of the times 
through fear of a fatal jostle. They speak guardedly, 



The Preservation of Character. 201 

as if a word might jar their priceless vase from the poise 
of continence. There is nothing so important to them 
as what they are pleased to consider their character ; 
consequently, that is always to be consulted before any 
course of action can be determined upon. All ques- 
tions of morality and reform, all matters of public or po- 
litical interest, all personal associations, are considered 
primarily with reference to this character. If they 
prove to be consistent with it, and seem calculated to 
reveal something more of its glory, they are entered 
upon, or adopted ; otherwise, they are discarded. 

When a man arrives at a point where the preserva- 
tion of his character becomes the prime object of his 
life, he may be considered a harmless man, but one 
upon whom no further dependence can be placed in 
carrying on the work of the world. As a member of 
society, he becomes strictly ornamental. We point to 
him as one of the ripe fruits of our civilization. We 
bring him out on great occasions, and show him. We 
make him president of conventions and benevolent as- 
sociations. We introduce strangers to him that they 
may be impressed. We chronicle his arrival at the 
hotels. We burn incense before him, because we know 
it will please him, and because we know that he rather 
expects it. Small children regard him in respectful 
silence as he passes. He becomes one of our institu- 
tions, like a City Hall or an old church. We always 
know where to find him, as we do a well-established 



202 Gold-Foil. 

town-line. But one thing we never do : we never go to 
him in an emergency that demands risk and self-sacri- 
fice, because we know that those things are not in his 
line. His character is the first thing, and that is to be 
taken care of. When we want any thing of this kind 
done, we go to men who have no character, or, having 
one, are not uncomfortably conscious of it. 

Good and harmless as these people usually are, 
sources as they are of amusement to those who under- 
stand the secret springs of their life, fine as they are 
when regarded as specimens, they are, nevertheless, the 
victims of a mistake. Personal character with them 
has come to be the grand object of life — personal 
character as a thing of popular repute, when it should 
always be a resultant of true action, instituted for un- 
selfish purposes. The meanest and the most illegiti- 
mate of all human pursuits, is the direct pursuit of a 
reputation. It is supremely selfish and contemptible ; 
and there is no man who really deserves a good repu- 
tation who does not make its acquisition subordinate, 
as an aim, in all his actions. A man whose action with 
relation to the questions that come before him is regu- 
lated by its preconceived effect upon his reputation 
with the public, is entirely untrustworthy, and will be 
trusted by the public no further than his interest is seen 
to coincide with the wishes of the public. 

Character is a thing that will take care of itself; 
and all character that does not take care of itself is 



The Preservation of Character. 203 

either very weak, or utterly fictitious. A man who 
does as nearly right as possible, according to the dic- 
tates of his judgment and his conscience, will achieve a 
character without giving a thought to it, so that all at- 
tention bestowed upon the direct acquisition of char- 
acter before the public, is so much attention wasted and 
so much time thrown away. By their works are we to 
know men ; and we have no other standard by which/ 
to measure them. We tolerate a harmless, selfish man, 
but we do not trust him with our interests. The most 
of those whom we find supremely devoted to the preser- 
vation of their character, won their character honestly 
enough, originally. They struck out boldly at the 
beginning of life, did nobly, succeeded, won the praise 
of the people, and then, like men grown rich, became 
suddenly conservative and timid. Finding themselves 
in possession of a character, and realizing something of 
the preciousness of the possession, they immediately 
began to nurse it, and arrange all their action with re- 
lation to it. Then they ceased to grow, and retired 
essentially from business. 

Much better would it have been for all of this class 
had they had fewer friends and more enemies. In fact, 
there is a fault in the reputation of every man who has 
no enemies, for no man can be a positive power in the 
world, moving in right lines through evils, and abuses, 
and wrongs, without treading upon the toes of some- 
body. As this world is constituted, no man can be 



204 Gold- Foil 

without enemies unless he be without power, or unless 
he adapt himself to the evils and the evil men encoun- 
tered in his course. Consequently, no man has a repu- 
tation which is really significant and valuable that is 
not won in about equal measure from the blessings of 
one class and the curses of another. The benedictions 
of the good are no better testimonials of a sound and 
valuable character than the maledictions of the bad. In 
fact, reputation and character are widely different 
things, though they are so closely coupled in the minds 
of those whom we are discusssing that they see no dif- 
ference between them. Character lives in a man ; 
reputation outside of him. A man may have a good 
character and no reputation, or he may have a good 
reputation and no character ; but with self-worshippers 
they are nearly identical. 

Of all the bondage in the world, I know of none 
more senseless and useless than bondage to one's char- 
acter or reputation. The " fogyism" and " hunkerism " 
of politics, and the rigid conservatism of religious opin- 
ion, grow mainly out of this bondage. Consistency is 
clung to with almost an insane tenacity. It is more 
important in this bondage that a course of action should 
be consistent with a man's past life than with truth and 
justice. A man's past is elevated as the highest stand- 
ard of his present and his future. He pledges himself 
against progress by making his present character and 
his past course the law of his life. He clings to the in- 



The Preservation of Character. 205 

stitutions, the opinions, the policy, and the sentiments 
in which he has cast his life ; and when these are gone, 
or are superseded, he clings to their names, and so 
" walks in vain show." If a party dies, it does not die 
to him ; because, if he were to admit the fact, or the 
idea, of its death, he would doubt his own infallibility. 
If an institution falls, he will not acknowledge it, for it 
will make a hole in a reputation which he considers 
compacted and complete. No man who progresses 
can be consistent with himself. Maturity cannot be 
consistent with immaturity. All the consistency God 
requires of any man, or approves in any man, is consis- 
tency with the best light of the present. Let the dead 
bury its dead. It is only God himself who has even the 
right to be consistent with His past life. 

The worthy young men who read these words are 
dreaming of the attainment of a character which shall 
give them not only reputation — not only praise — but 
weight in the world. If this be your prime object, 
young man, you are very likely to take the wrong 
course and make a wreck of yourself. Let ir^e tell you 
that if you do right, your character will take care of 
itself, no less than your reputation. Serve God and 
your generation well, leave the consideration of your 
character and yourself behind, seek to be consistent 
with the highest life you have, be not afraid to change 
your opinions or your course on any thing if you think 
you are wrong, and God and your generation will take 



206 Gold-Foil. 

care of you. As soon as it is seen that you are unself- 
ish, and that you are free to act rightly and justly with 
relation to whatever comes before you, a place in the 
world will be made for you, and work will be given 
you to do. Do not be disheartened if you make ene- 
mies, for if you are really a good power in the world, 
you will be sure to make them. I do not say that a 
man who has enemies is necessarily a good man, but I 
do say that no man can be a good power in the world 
without making them. 

There are a hundred things that I could mention 
more valuable than reputation. Self-respect is one of 
these ; a conscience void of offence is another ; the re- 
formation and the progress of those around you are 
others ; and God's approval is another. Maintain your 
self-respect ; keep a spotless conscience ; and do good 
to all around you with supreme reference to Him in 
whom you live, and your character will grow health- 
fully, without a thought given to it. The moment the 
preservation of your character and reputation becomes 
the great object of your life, — the moment that you 
begin to arrange your life with reference to a character 
already achieved — that moment you will cease to grow, 
and pass to your place among the harmless fossils that 
occupy the ornamental niches of society. 

The influence of enemies upon a really sound char- 
acter is always healthful. A certain degree of recog- 
nition and praise does any man good ; but the usual 



The Preservation of Character. 207 

effect of a great deal of it is debilitating. It spoils the 
child, and weakens the preacher, and enervates the 
orator. It injures the character of almost every man. 
Praise is very sweet, but the soul cannot thrive upon a 
diet of sugar any more than the body. A man who re- 
ceives a great deal of praise, and drinks it in with 
genuine appetite, soon comes to regard it with an un- 
healthy greed. He wants it from everybody, wants 
it all the time, labors to get it, and is disappointed and 
uneasy if he does not get it. It is well for every man, 
therefore, to have enemies, to hear what they say about 
him, and to experience the weight of their opposition. 
Enemies drive the soul home to its motives, rouse its 
finest energies, compact its character, render it watch- 
ful of the issues of its life, keep it strained up to its 
work, and help to eliminate from it selfish considera- 
tions. There hardly ever lived a reformer who might 
not have been strangled and silenced at the outset of 
his career by praise. Thank God for the enmity that 
developed into giants the reformers of our own and of 
past times. May He in mercy forbid that any of the 
young and noble hearts now yearning for the good 
work of the world be spoiled by too much praise and 
too few enemies ! 

A character once worthily won is to be preserved 
in precisely the same way that it is won. A character 
is easily tarnished, and a good name easily lost ; but 
neither is to be preserved by making it the supreme 



208 Gold-Foil. 

object of attention. Here it becomes necessary to keep 
a broad distinction between reputation and character, 
for one may be destroyed by slander, while the other 
can never be harmed save by its possessor. The mal- 
ice of others may tarnish a good name — may load it 
with suspicions — may associate it with gross scandal — 
may blacken it even beyond the reach of total re- 
covery, but the character can receive no injury save by 
the voluntary act and choice of its owner. A man, in 
order to retain his reputation, may be required, not 
unfrequently, to compromise his character ; and in 
order to keep his character pure, he may be obliged to 
compromise his reputation. Character is as much more 
valuable than reputation, as it is more valuable than its 
own name. 

Reputation is in no man's keeping. You and I can- 
not determine what other men shall think of us and say 
about us. We can only determine what they ought 
to think of us and say about us ; and we can only do 
this by acting squarely up to our convictions of duty, 
without the slightest reference to its effect upon our- 
selves. There are two ways in which men lose their 
character and their reputation with it. The selfish 
means instituted for the direct purpose of preserving 
character and reputation are damaging to any man. 
How many statesmen and politicians have " fixed them- 
selves up " with a character which every one sees is in- 
tended for a market, and how few of all the number 



The Preservation of Character. 209 

ever arrive at the goal of their ambition ! Many of 
them become the laughing-stock of the country ; and 
when the great conventions meet, their names are 
passed by, and new ones elevated, of those who have 
been employed in minding their business, and letting 
their character and reputation take care of themselves. 
One great reason why so few of the truly great men of 
the nation have failed to be placed in the presidential 
office is that they spoiled their reputation in the selfish 
desire to preserve it for the purpose of winning office. 

Another way of losing character and reputation is by 
yielding to some sudden temptation to sin, or by the se- 
cret entertainment of a vice that with certainty under- 
mines both. A single deed of shame, ah ! how it black- 
ens beyond all cleansing the character that has been 
builded in the struggles and toils of half a century ! 
There is no wealth under the sun so precious as a good 
name worthily won, and there is no calamity so great as 
such a name shamefully lost. Far be it from me to de- 
preciate the value of character, or to depreciate pride in 
its maintenance. While it should be the natural, un- 
sought consequent of a life controlled by the purest and 
noblest motives, it doubtless may be entertained as a 
choice possession, always subordinate as a motive of ac- 
tion to Christian principle and duty. 



CHAPTER XX. 

VICES OF IMAGINATION. 

*' It is dangerous playing with edged tools." 

" He who avoids the temptation avoids the sin. 1 ' 

" Keep yourself from opportunities, and God will keep you from sins." 

"The pitcher that goes often to the well gets broken at last." 

THERE is an enchanted middle ground between vir- 
tue and vice, where many a soul lives and feeds in 
secret, and takes its payment for the restraint and mor- 
tification of its outward life. I once knew an old dog 
whose most exalted and delighted life was lived upon 
this charmed territory. The only brute tenants of the 
dwelling where he lived were himself and a cat. Rover 
bore no ill-will toward his feline companion — in fact, he 
was too good-natured to bear ill-will toward any thing. 
He had been detected once or twice in worrying her, 
and one or two severe floggings had taught him that the 
sport would not be tolerated. Still he did not stop 
thinking about it ; and at every convenient opportunity 
he planted himself in her way, watched her as she lurked 
for prey, scared her by growls and feints, and kept her 
in a fever of apprehension and fretfulness. Now, while 



Vices of Imagination, 211 

I do not believe that he intended her the slightest mis- 
chief, I have no doubt that, in his bloody imagination, 
he had slain her a thousand times, chased her all over 
the neighborhood, and torn her limb from limb. In 
short, while he knew that he must not worry her, he 
took the satisfaction that lay next to it — that of being 
tempted to worry her, and found in the excitement of 
this temptation the highest rewards of his self denial. 

Humanity has plenty of Rovers of this same sort — 
men and women who lead faultless outward lives, who 
have no intention to sin, who yield their judgment — if 
not their conscience — to the motives of self-restrarnt, 
but who, in secret, resort to the fields of temptation, 
and seek among its excitements for the flavor, at least, 
of the sins which they have discarded. This realm of 
temptation is, to a multitude of minds, one of the most 
seductive in which their feet ever wander. Thither they 
resort to meet and commune with the images, beautiful 
but impure, of the forbidden things that lie beyond. In 
fact, I have sometimes thought there were men and wo- 
men who were really more in love with temptation than 
with sin — who, by genuine experience had learned that 
feasts of the imagination were sweeter than feasts of 
sense. Whether this be the case or not, I have no 
doubt that the love of temptation, for the excitement 
which it brings, is very general, even with those whom 
we esteem as patterns of virtue. The surrender of the 
soul to these excitements is the more dangerous from 



212 Gold- Foil. 

the fact that, by some sort of sensual sophistry, they 
are conceived to be harmless, and without the pale of 
actual sin. There is no intention to sin in it, but only 
an attempt to filch from sin all the pleasure that can 
be procured without its penalty. 

Playing with the temptation to sin is doubtless ac- 
companied with less apparent disaster than the actual 
commission of it, and, so far, is a smaller evil ; but it 
is an evil, and, essentially, a sin. The man who loves 
and seeks the excitement of temptation, shows that he is 
restrained from sin by fear, and not by principle— that, 
while his life is on the side of virtue, his affections lean 
to vice. This is a sham life, and a mean life. 'There are 
multitudes to whom temptation comes from the forbidden 
world of sin, but it comes unbidden and unwelcome — on 
the lines of old appetites and old passions not yet thor- 
oughly under control — and it is fought against and driven 
out. It is the voluntary going out of the soul after temp- 
tation, as a kind of unforbidden good, that I challenge 
and question. It is the willing, secret sin of imagination 
that I denounce, as not only a sin essentially, in itself, 
but as the path over which every soul naturally travels 
to the overt act of transgression which lies beyond. It 
is a kind of sin that injures none but the sinner, di- 
rectly ; but fouler more rotten-hearted men I have 
never met than the cowardly hypocrites whose lives are 
spent in dallying with the thought of sins which they 
dare not commit. 



Vices of Imagination. 213 

We often wonder that certain men and women are left 
by God to the commission of sins which shock us. We 
wonder how, under the temptation of a single hour, 
they fall from the very heights of virtue and of honor 
into sin and shame. The fact is that there are no such 
falls as these, or there are next to none. These men 
and women are those who have dallied with temptation 
— have exposed themselves to the influence of it, and 
have been weakened and corrupted by it. If we could 
get at the secret histories of those who stand suddenly 
discovered as vicious, we should find that they had been 
through this most polluting preparatory process — that 
they had been in the habit of going out and meeting 
temptation in order that they might enjoy its excite- 
ments — that underneath a blameless outward life they 
have welcomed and entertained sin in their imaginations, 
until their moral sense was blunted, and they were ready 
for the deed of which they thought they were incapable. 

I very earnestly and gratefully believe in the exercise 
of a divinely restraining influence upon the minds of 
those who are tempted, but I believe there is a point 
beyond which it rarely goes. I do not believe that God 
will interpose to prevent a man from sinning who either 
seeks, or willingly encounters, the temptation and the 
opportunity to sin. When a man finds charm in oppor- 
tunity, and delight in temptation, he has already com- 
mitted in heart the sin which he shrinks from embody- 
ing in action ; and God rarely stands between him and 



214 Gold- Foil, 

further guilt. We are to keep ourselves from opportu- 
nities, and God will keep us from sin. It is all that can 
be expected of a being of infinite purity that he shall 
guard us from the power of temptation that comes to us. 
He must be a hard and irreverent, or a very ignorant 
and deluded man, who can pray to be delivered from the 
overcoming power of a temptation into whose atmos- 
phere he willingly enters. In fact, we are taught to 
pray, not that we may be delivered from the power of 
temptation, but that we may not be led into it. 

It may be said with measurable truthfulness that half 
the art of Christian living consists in shunning tempta- 
tion. A man who has lived to middle life has observed 
and studied himself to little purpose if he have not 
learned the weak points of his own character, and the 
kind of temptations that assail him with the most power ; 
and it is doubtless true that any man who really loves a 
pure and good life will avoid a temptation as he would 
the sin to which it would lead him. I can have but little 
• charity for those who apologize for their frequent falls 
from virtue by charging the blame upon the power of 
temptation, because temptation and opportunity come 
to them unsought no oftener than to others. It is the 
man who loves vice, and delights in temptation, who is 
subject to their power. I have no faith in the reforma- 
tion of a drunkard who carelessly passes his accustomed 
tippling-shop, and carelessly looks in. 

We are to avoid temptation because it is only as vice 



Vices of Imagination. 215 

is glorified, and its charms exalted by the power of 
imagination, that it appears charming and attractive to 
us. A vision of naked vice, of whatsoever sort, is a vis- 
ion of deformity. There are thousands among those 
who delight in the excitements of temptation, voluntarily 
sought, who would shrink with horror and disgust from a 
sudden introduction to the presence of a vice toward 
which they have been attracted from a distance. There 
is no beauty in beastliness, save that which an excited 
imagination lends to it. It is by no inherent charm that it 
draws men and women toward it. It is as low and loath- 
some as the serpent around whose evil eyes the poor 
bird flutters, until it drops, a victim to the fangs that 
await its certain coming. 

I have said thus much generally of the sins of the 
imagination, aware that my remarks apply mainly to 
one variety of temptations — the most dangerous and the 
most seductive of all. There is nothing charming in the 
thought of murder, in the contemplation of a great re- 
venge, in theft, and in the majority of crimes. Imagi- 
nation has no sophistry by which such crimes may be 
justified, and no power to wrap them in an atmosphere 
of beauty. The sins of the imagination are mainly those 
which contemplate the illicit indulgence of natural and 
normal passions and appetites, the temptations to which 
come in upon the lines of legitimate and heaven-or- 
dained sympathies. It is among the meshes of that 
which is legitimate and that which is illegitimate— that 



216 Gold- Foil. 

which is forbidden and that which is unforbidden — that 
the moral sense becomes involved and moral purity is 
compromised. It is because men and women are led out 
into the field of temptation by some of the sweetest and 
strongest sympathies of their natures that they feel no 
alarm and apprehend no danger. It is because they en- 
tertain no design to sin that they linger there without 
fear. Oh ! if this imaginary world of sin could be un- 
veiled — this world into which the multitude go unknown 
and unsuspected — to dream of delights unhallowed by 
relations that may only give them license — how would it 
be red with the blush of shame ! 

This world of sense, built by the imagination — how 
fair and foul it is ! Like a fairy island in the sea of 
life, it smiles in sunlight and sleeps in green, known of 
the world not by communion of knowledge, but by 
personal, secret discovery ! The waves of every ocean 
kiss its feet. The airs of every clime play among its 
trees, and tire with the voluptuous music which they 
bear. Flowers bend idly to the fall of fountains, and 
beautiful forms are wreathing their white arms, and 
calling for companionship. Out toward this charmed 
island, by day and by night, a million shallops push un- 
seen of each other, and of the world of real life left be- 
hind, for revelry and reward ! The single sailors never 
meet each other ; they tread the same paths unknown 
of each other ; they come back, and no one knows, and 
no one asks where they have been. Again and again 



Vices of Imagination. 217 

is the visit repeated, with no absolutely vicious inten- 
tion, yet not without gathering the taint of vice. If 
God's light could shine upon this crowded sea, and 
discover the secrets of the island which it invests, what 
shameful retreats and encounters should we witness — 
fathers, mothers, maidens, men — children even, whom 
we had deemed as pure as snow — flying with guilty 
eyes and white lips to hide themselves from a great 
disgrace ! 

There is vice enough in the world of actual life, and 
it is there that we look for it ; but there is more in that 
other world of imagination that we do not see — vice 
that poisons, vice that kills, vice that makes whited 
sepulchres of temples that are deemed pure, even by 
multitudes of their tenants. Let none esteem them- 
selves blameless or pure who willingly and gladly seek 
in this world of imagination for excitements ! That 
remarkable poem of Margaret Fuller, which ascribes 
an indelible taint to the maiden who only dreams of 
her lover an unmaidenly dream, has a fearful but en- 
tirely legitimate significance. It is a forbidden realm, 
where pure feet never wander ; and all who would re- 
main pure must forever avoid it. It is. the haunt of 
devils and damned spirits. Its foul air poisons man- 
hood and shrivels womanhood, even if it never be left 
behind in an advance to the overt sin which lies be- 
yond it. 

The pitcher that goes often to the well gets broken 



218 Gold- Foil. 

at last. I presume that there is not one licentious man 
or ruined woman in one hundred whose way to perdi- 
tion did not lie directly through this forbidden field of 
imagination. Into that field they went, and went 
again, till, weakened by the poisonous atmosphere, and 
grown morbid in their love of sin, and developed in all 
their tendencies to sensuality, and familiarized with the 
thought of vice, they fell, with neither the disposition 
nor the power to rise again. It is in this field that 
Satan wins all his victories. It is here that he is trans- 
formed into an angel of light. It is on this debatable 
ground, half-way between vice and virtue, whither the 
silly multitude resort for dreams of that which they 
may not enjoy, that the question of personal perdition 
is settled. A pure soul, sternly standing on the ground 
of virtue, or a pure soul standing immediately in the 
presence of vice, not once in ten thousand instances 
bends from its rectitude. It is only when it willingly 
becomes a wanderer among the wiles of temptation, 
and an entertainer of the images it finds there, that it 
becomes subject to the power that procures its ruin. 

To the young, especially, is the exposition of this 
subject necessary — to those whose imaginations are ac- 
tive, whose passions are fresh and strong, and whose 
inexperience leaves them ignorant of consequences. 
There is no field of danger less talked of than this. 
Through many years of attendance upon the public 
ministrations of Christianity, I have never but twice 



Vices of Imagination. 2j.g 

heard this subject pointedly and faithfully alluded to. 
Books are mainly silent upon it. Fathers and mothers, 
faithful in all things else, shrink from the administra- 
tion of counsels upon matters which they would fain be- 
lieve are all unknown to the precious ones they have 
nurtured. Thus it is in schools, and thus is it every- 
where, where counsel is needed, and where it is de- 
manded. An impure word, a doubtful jest, a tale of 
sin, drunk in by these fresh souls, excites the imagina- 
tion, and straightway they discover the field of contem- 
plation, so full of danger and of death, and learn all its 
paths before they know any thing of the perils to which 
they subject themselves. Let me say to these, what 
they hear so little from other lips and pens, that when- 
ever they find themselves attracted to it, they can 
never abide in it, or enter upon it, without taint and 
without sin. Sooner or later in their life will they find 
that from all willing dalliance with temptation, and un- 
resisted entertainment of unworthy and impure imag- 
inations, their character has suffered an injury which 
untold ages will fail to remedy. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

QUESTIONS ABOVE REASON. 

"Anoint a villain, and he will prick you; prick a villain, and he will 
anoint you." 

" Give a rogue an inch, and he will take an ell." 
"He who lies down with dogs, gets up with fleas." 

GOOD men never make anything by treating vil- 
lains as equals. A conscious villain who is 
treated as an equal by an honest man who is conscious 
of his villainy, recognizes the man at once as a coward, 
and treats him accordingly. Treated as an inferior, a 
bad man becomes polite at once, or plays defiantly the 
bully and the blackguard that he is. We may go the 
world over without finding any man who, in his own 
soul, knows his place so well as a very bad man ; and 
there is no way of securing his respect so easily as by 
giving him to understand that he is understood, and 
appreciated at his true value. Bow to him, and treat 
him like a gentleman, and he flounders and swaggers 
in the respectability conferred upon him. Shun him, 
or show him in any way that he is known and despised, 



Questions above Reason. 221 

and he becomes respectful and decent, nine times in 
ten. There is no social or Christian relation in which 
good and bad men are equals, and any good man who, 
for any cowardly reason, is willing to ignore the dis- 
tinction, commits a crime against society and against 
Christianity, and secures to himself the contempt of 
those to whom he defers. Anoint a villain, and he will 
prick you ; prick a villain, and he will anoint you. 

I know of no whip so effectual in its powec when 
held over the back of an unprincipled man as social 
proscription. The worst men, save in exceptional cases 
of brutal self-abandonment, have a longing for respecta- 
bility. It is a hard thing for any man to walk through 
the streets, and meet among respectable men nought 
but stony faces, and to know that those faces are set 
simply against his sins. It is a hard thing for the worst 
men to feel that all good hearts and all decent hearths 
are shut against them, because their entrance would be 
regarded as a contamination. So these men strive to 
cheat us into respecting them by the assumption of 
false names, or endeavor to purchase respect and posi- 
tion by exhibitions of public spirit. The professional 
gambler, who is simply a leech upon the social body — 
who gets his living without earning it, and wins the 
wealth of others by games of chance — the most heart- 
less, ruthless and mischievous of men — calls himself a 
sporting man, and loves to be called a sporting man. 
He would be much obliged to society if it would never 



222 Gold-Foil. 

mention the word " gambler" in connection with his 
name. In fact, he would be willing to sacrifice a little 
something for the public good, if by so doing he could 
keep his chin above water. 

Again, give a rogue an inch, and he will take an 
ell. Any favor shown to such men as these is an essen- 
tial license for further sin. They want countenance, 
and they seek it in many ways. If they can create a 
party for themselves, or manage to secure apologists 
and defenders among nominally respectable men, they 
are delighted, and feel themselves safer in their schemes 
and operations. We have only to recognize them as 
equals to lengthen the rope that holds them to decency. 
The moment I recognize a well-known scoundrel as an 
equal, that moment I descend to his standard of moral- 
ity or immorality, assist to lower the general standard 
of respectability, and furnish to him a new point of de- 
parture from which he may plunge into further scoun- 
drelism. The fact is that no man who preys upon 
society for a livelihood, or habitually engages in prac- 
tices which compromise social purity and good order, 
can, by any possibility, be a gentleman ; and no gentle- 
man can deal with such a man on an equality, or eat 
of his dainties, or accept of his company or his favors, 
without compromising his position as a gentleman. 

He who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas. 
When a decent man lowers his standard of respecta- 
bility so far that he can consort with a foe to society 



Questions above Reason. 223 

and morality, he damages himself beyond cure, in most 
instances. Confounding moral distinctions and com- 
promising with sin are dangerous operations. In the 
measure by which a decent man confers respectability 
upon a rascal, does the rascal transfer reproach to him. 
The act is one which changes both parties for the 
worse. A respectable man who comes to look with a 
degree of complacency upon one who has no title to 
respectability, is morally damaged. He becomes a 
weaker man, more open to temptation, and more liable 
to fall. The princely gamblers of New York and 
Washington understand this principle thoroughly, and 
initiate all their victims by bringing them into com- 
munion with rascality over their costly viands and 
their abundant wines and cigars. There is no com- 
mon ground of communion between the two classes. 
There is not even debatable ground. The distinction 
is heaven-wide on its very face. 

I have stated these facts, first, because they are 
true, and should be made useful ; and, second, because 
they introduce me to, and assist to illustrate, a principle 
not sufficiently recognized in* the contacts and contests 
of truth with falsehood in the moral and religious 
world. It may be remembered that a champion of 
slavery and an opponent of slavery once met in an 
American city as disputants or wranglers upon this ques- 
tion. If slavery were only a political question, a discus- 
sion like this might be legitimate, though it might not be 



224 Gold- Foil. 

very useful. But it is recognized everywhere as not only 
a political, but a moral question. I enter upon no dis- 
cussion of this question, because it is not relevant to 
my present purpose, but I say that to the opponent of 
slavery the right of every man to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness, is a self-evident truth — a truth 
which calls not for argument but statement — a funda- 
mental truth, which lies at the very basis of all free- 
dom and all sound institutions. Now, the moment a 
man holding such a view as this meets a champion of 
slavery on even ground, to argue the question, he 
yields the battle, and is worsted before he opens his 
mouth. By consenting that the question admits of 
argument, for a moment, he yields ground which is 
impregnable, places himself on a common footing with 
his antagonist, and damages himself and his cause. I 
have seen Christian men enter into arguments with 
avowed infidels in bar-rooms and vicious assemblages, 
as a matter of duty ; and such sights have always 
oppressed me with a sense of humiliation. Infidelity 
is not the equal of faith in any sense. Light has no 
fellowship with darkness, and Christ no concord with 
Belial. Religion may enter a pothouse as a minister of 
good, but it may not lay aside its dignity to argue its 
rights and claims there. The moment that it does this, 
it is shorn of its power. A man in whom Christianity 
has become a life, knows that Christianity is a verity — 
knows that no argument under heaven can convince 



Questions above Reason. 225 

him of its falsehood. He knows that the highest claims 
of Christianity are not based on argument. He knows 
that he was not intellectually argued into religion, that 
he is not kept in it by force of argument or logic, and 
that the highest demonstration of the truth of Christian- 
ity which he possesses — his own individual experience 
— is precisely that which he cannot bring forward in any 
dispute with an infidel. The moment, therefore, that 
he comes down from the position of positive knowledge, 
and admits that there is room for argument, he sur- 
renders the citadel, and the conflict is to be decided 
simply by personal prowess. The truth of Christianity 
admitted between two opponents, there is, of course, a 
legitimate theatre of discussion opened for questions 
connected with it ; but until that be admitted, there 
can be no discussion that does not compromise the po- 
sition and the power of him who enters as the cham- 
pion of Christianity. 

I say that infidelity is not the equal of faith, because, 
while infidelity abides in, and relies upon, pure reason, 
faith, with reason abundantly satisfied, relies upon the 
demonstrations of an experience which infidelity will re- 
ject as a matter of course. I say that faith and infi- 
delity can never meet on common ground to argue the 
truth or falsehood of Christianity, because faith, as its 
first step, must surrender its stronghold, and yield the 
question to the arbitration of reason, by which it can 
never be settled. I say, further, that no Christian man 



226 Gold- Foil. 

has a right to do this, and that he cannot do it without 
weakening himself, and damaging his cause. I may be 
willing, and should be willing, to give my reasons for 
my belief in Christianity, but I should not be willing to 
surrender a question to the judgment of reason which I 
know and feel to be mainly out of its realm. There is 
nothing that infidelity more thoroughly delights in than 
argument, because, in argument, it brings faith down to 
its own level, and takes it at a disadvantage. It is lifted 
into importance and respectability by the consent of 
faith to meet it on common ground — ground where none 
but w r eak minds will ever meet it — minds that will be 
mastered in a battle of reason almost as a matter of 
course. 

Many of the best things received into the belief and 
faith of the best men — things relating to the heart of 
the individual and the life of society — demand that they 
shall never be submitted to the combats and conclusions 
of reason on a common ground with error. A gentle- 
man will not fight a duel with a churl, simply because 
the churl is not his equal. He could gain no victory 
that would compensate for the social disgrace involved 
in meeting an inferior on a footing of equality. Men of 
the world, who will scout my reasoning upon the man- 
agement of a certain class of moral questions, will un- 
derstand this illustration, and find it somewhat difficult, 
I imagine, to get away from it. It is recognized as a 
rule of law, based on a fundamental principle of justice, 



Questions above Reason, 227 

that a man should be tried by his peers — a body of men 
capable of appreciating all the circumstances and evi- 
dence of his case, and dispossessed of those prejudices of 
class and condition which would have a tendency to mis- 
lead them. The same principle demands that all those 
questions, which relate to things above the realm of 
pure reason, shall be judged by those who are capable of 
appreciating, and willing to accept, the evidence that lies 
in that realm. As there is no confession of cowardice 
on the part of a gentleman who refuses to fight a churl, 
and no self-conviction of guilt in him who declines to be 
tried by other than his peers, so there is no admission 
of weakness on the part of him who refuses to place his 
faith on the footing of another man's infidelity, and to 
submit the questions touching his highest life, to the 
judgment of those who are incapable of understanding, 
and unwilling to admit, the evidence relating to them. 

The power of Christianity before the world, as a 
system of religion, no less than the power of all those 
objects and subjects of faith and belief which lie above 
the domain of pure reason, abides in assertion — bold, 
broad, direct, confident, and persistent assertion. If a 
man were to deny that the rose is beautiful, and chal- 
lenge me to the proof of its beauty, what more could 
I do than to hold the rose before his eyes, and say that 
it is beautiful ? If the rose could speak, would it thank 
me for admitting that its beauty is a matter of argu- 
ment? The settlement of the question of its beauty 



228 Gold- Foil, 

is utterly beyond the power of reason. I know it 
is beautiful ; I feel that it is beautiful ; its beauty 
thrills me with the most delicious pleasure. That is 
enough for me ; but that would not be enough for him 
who denies its beauty. I arrive at a knowledge of its 
beauty by no process of reasoning, and I can maintain 
the fact of its beauty by no power of argument, because 
the determination of its quality and character is without 
the realm of reason. 

In my judgment, a great mistake has been made by 
well-meaning and zealous men, through treating error 
and infidelity with altogether too much respect. I be- 
lieve that it is safe to say that Christianity is indebted 
for none of its progress in the world to rational conflicts 
with infidelity. I do not believe that a single great 
wrong has ever been overthrown by meeting the advo- 
cates of wrong in argument. Assertion of truths known 
and felt, promulgation of truth from the high platform 
of truth itself, declaration of faith by the mouth of 
moral conviction — this is the New Testament method, 
and the true one. If a man say to me that he does not 
believe in the existence of a God, my judgment tells me 
at once that, if he is sincere, he is insane or a fool, and 
that if he is insincere, he is a liar. Shall I sit down to 
argue the question with him after this ? Shall I admit 
that his atheism is as good as my belief? No. If he 
make his assertion, let him be content with that. If he 
ask of me the reason of my belief, I will give it him, 



Questions above Reason. 229 

but I will not admit that to be a subject of argument 
which is the first fact in the mental and moral universe. 
By so doing I should commit an absurdity that would 
stultify me, and inflict a dishonor on the Being of whom 
I make myself the champion. 

If I have made myself understood on this point, I 
have dwelt upon it long enough, and have only to add, 
that he who allows himself to be placed in a false posi- 
tion by consenting to stand on the platform of reason, 
with relation to questions beyond the domain of reason, 
will find himself damaged in the end. If he lie down 
with dogs, he will get up with fleas. A man who con- 
sents to the purely rational decision of a question which 
reason can never settle, will find himself open to the in- 
vasions of error — weakened in all his defences. For- 
saking an impregnable position, he enters a field full 
of doubts and dangers ; and if he consent to remain 
there, he will become a subject of their attack at every 
point. More men have been argued, in a measure, or 
entirely, out of faith, than have ever been argued into 
it — not because their faith was irrational, but because 
they have prostituted that to the basis of reason which 
is beyond the realm of reason. 

Assertion, proclamation, exhibition, illustration — 
these are the instruments of the progress of all truth 
relating to the highest life in the world. The Gospel 
is promulgated by preaching, not by wrangling. The 
reformation of the sixteenth century was effected by 



230 Gold- Foil. 

the assertion of a few simple truths, and the denuncia- 
tion of errors and abuses. The idea of Luther consent- 
ing to meet Tetzel before a public audience, to argue 
the question of the legitimacy and morality of peddling 
indulgences to sin, is simply ridiculous. That thing was 
not to be soberly argued, but soundly denounced. No 
truth held to be self-evident, and no truth whose demon- 
stration lies in personal experience — and therefore above 
reason — can ever be submitted to argument without 
prostitution or without danger. Reason dethroned 
truth in France, but truth resumed its seat, in spite of 
reason, by simple self-assertion. All truth that lives 
independent of reason asks no favors of it, and takes 
no law of it. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE. 

" Many a cow stands in the meadow, and looks wistfully at the com- 
mon." 

" Grass grows not upon the highway." 
"Life at court is often a short cut to hell." 

THERE is no human estate or condition around 
which gathers so much that is fallacious in glory 
and fictitious in attraction as around that which is de- 
nominated " public life." To be exalted in public office, 
to be observed of a state or a nation, to be sought out 
and honored of public assemblages, to be known and 
recognized by the public press — this seems to a great 
multitude, whose fortunes are cast in private life, to be 
the most desirable, the most enviable thing, in all the 
world. If we could read the secret of nine hearts in ten 
that we meet, we should find that under their seeming 
content with private life and apparent satisfaction with 
private pursuits, there is a longing for a position that 
will give their persons, powers and names a public rec- 
ognition. The greed for office, which is evident on 



232 Gold- Foil, 

every hand, and among all classes of people, is but a 
demonstration of this universal appetite. It is not con- 
fined to a sex, but manifests itself among women as well 
as among men. We hear much of " woman's rights," 
from the lips of women who have a taste for public life, 
or a desire for public recognition, and they make their 
proselytes principally among those who are exercised by 
a similar ambition. 

It is a very sad thing to me — this discontent with pri- 
vate life — because the larger part of it has no noble ele- 
ment in it. The majority of men and women who are 
ambitious of public life do not wish for it for the sake of 
doing more good, nor because they believe themselves 
to be transcendently adapted to the performance of pub- 
lic duties. They are not willing to work and wait, in 
their private spheres of action, until they demonstrate 
their ability and fitness for public position, and are 
sought for by the public as those worthy of trust and 
honor. No, they desire place for the sake of place ; they 
seek for public life simply from a greed for notoriety or 
fame. They desire to be known, to be looked at, to be 
talked about, to be lionized. It is publicity that has 
charms for them — not public duty, nor public responsi- 
bility. All this is utterly selfish — utterly contemptible. 
It is unworthy of sound manhood and true womanhood, 
and its tendency is directly demoralizing. When we re- 
member that the public offices of the country are filled 
mainly by those who have attained them by direct seek- 



Public and Private Life. 233 

ing, spurred on by this base ambition, it will not be 
hard to account for the low morals that are to be found 
in public life. 

We can go further than this. It may truthfully be 
said that a man whose chief ambition is publicity of 
name and position, demonstrates, by its possession and 
exercise, his unfitness for that to which he aspires. If 
in this great world of discontented private life there are 
men or women who read these words, let them consider 
that in the degree in which their ambition to be known 
is the predominant motive within them, do they demon- 
strate their unfitness for the honors which they seek. 
The ambition is essentially a selfish and a mean one, 
and proves directly, and unmistakably, the possession 
of a nature unworthy of great public responsibilities. A 
surpassing, overweening desire for public life, for the 
sake of public life, and the kind of honor which it brings, 
demonstrates a nature that will subordinate public to 
private good, and elevate personal reputation above the 
requirements of public duty. The cowardice of politi- 
cians, and the shameful devotion to private interests 
that prevail in legislative bodies, only show how many 
have found place through this selfish seeking of it. 

But all public life, or all notoriety, is not to be found 
in politics. Literature, journalism, the pulpit, the bar 
— all these are aspired to as objects that are calculated, 
more or less, to satisfy the appetite for public notoriety. 
The consequence is that literature is crowded with weak 



234 Gold- Foil. 

or vicious pretenders, journalism with greedy self- 
seekers, the pulpit with men who have no qualifications 
for their calling, and the bar with brawling pettifoggers. 
The question with great numbers who embrace these 
professions is not — " What have I within me for the 
world, that I may convey through the profession which I 
choose to the world ?" but — " What has the world for 
me, that it can convey through this profession to me ? " 
There is a proper kind of self-seeking, but it is that 
which has its basis in worthy doing. A man who gladly 
grasps an honor which he has not earned, because it is 
an honor, is a man unworthy of trust and without shame. 

But is there any thing, after all, in this public life that 
is so very desirable ? Is there any thing so very sweet 
in having one's name public property ? Is there any 
thing in the burden of public responsibilities and cares 
that is so exceedingly pleasant to bear ? I am willing 
that any man who bears worthily the burden of public 
life shall answer these questions. Any man who takes 
upon his shoulders, and faithfully and conscientiously 
carries, the responsibilities of a public position, knows 
and feels that he is a slave, and that the careless hind 
who whistles behind his plough has a peace of mind 
which has left him forever. 

It matters not what kind of publicity or notoriety 
any man, worthy or unworthy, may have, he will be 
the object of the meanest envy and the most inveterate 
enmity. A name that has become public property is a 



Public a,7id Private Life, 235 

name to be bandied about, coupled with foul epithets, 
criticised, contemned, or to be made the subject of ex- 
travagant laudation — more humiliating, if less madden- 
ing. The alternative of a public life of mingled praise 
and abuse, or of unmeasured abuse, is that of a public 
idol — is a public life that shall be the object of univer- 
sal flattery. There are some men who can withstand 
the influences of such a position as this, but they are 
few, and far between. A public life is always a life of 
great temptation ; and few lead it who do not feel, in 
the depths of their souls, that they have been damaged 
by it. A host of evil influences cluster about it. It 
interferes with domestic peace, absorbs the mind, and 
blunts the affections. It depresses the tone of the 
moral feelings, and hinders the development of piety 
in Christian souls. When entered upon, it is found to 
be full of intrigues, petty jealousies, and selfish conten- 
tions ; while its rewards are the most hollow and illu- 
sory that can be imagined. 

I will not deny that to be loved and recognized by 
the public for a character worthily won, and for ser- 
vices faithfully and unselfishly rendered, is a boon to 
be gratefully received and genially cherished. An am- 
bition to be worthy of public honor and popular recog- 
nition is a legitimate motive of a noble mind. That 
there are sweet rewards in such a recognition as this, 
is not to be denied ; but a notoriety, sought for its own 
sake, and attained for purely selfish ends — a public life 



236 Gold- Foil. 

entered upon for the rewards of fame — is one of the 
basest things and most miserable cheats in the world. 
Estimated legitimately, all public life is a private bur- 
den, to be assumed as a matter of duty, and borne un- 
selfishly. Such public life as this deserves honor, as 
one of its incidental rewards, but there is not a worthy 
mind in the world that occupies a prominent position 
before the public that does not turn, and return, to the 
little circle of home and its affections — to the grateful 
sphere of its private life — for that which is sweetest 
and best in the material of its earthly happiness. 

Grass grows not upon the highway, but by the 
highway side — in humble pasture-lands, in quiet mead- 
ows, and in well-fenced homesteads. Where horses 
tramp, and wheels roll, and cattle tread, and swine are 
driven in hungry droves, every thing is foul with dust 
and offal. It is only on the other side of the fence that 
the clover blooms, and the daisy nods, and the grass 
spreads itself, undisturbed, into velvet lawns. It is not 
where unclean beasts rove freely, and browse at will, 
that the maize perfects its golden product and the 
bending tree its fruit, but in secluded fields, where the 
husbandman works and watches unseen. No more is 
it in public life that the best affections of our natures 
blossom, and the little virtues spring and spread to 
give to life the freshness of velvet verdure. No more 
is it in public life that a golden character is perfected, 
and fruit is matured and borne unto eternal life. It is 



Public and Private Life. 237 

only in private life that the highest development, the 
purest tastes, the sweetest happiness, and the finest 
consummations and successes of life are found. To 
these conclusions reason guides us, and experience 
holds us. 

I have alluded to the desire of women for public 
life, and in this connection, the subject naturally arises 
again. With women who desire a public career, the 
question is one of rights and privileges, as if public life 
were the grand estate of humanity. With me, it is not 
a question of rights at all, though, if I were to make it 
such, I should not find myself greatly at variance with 
those who maintain the rights of women most stoutly. 
Abstractly, a woman has a right to be, and to do, 
what she pleases. I believe that it is the right and 
privilege of woman to remain in private life, if she 
choose so to remain. It is not the right of man to 
shirk public responsibility, if it be laid upon him. 
Man's physical structure and intellectual constitution 
— his power to labor and endure — his freedom from the 
sexual disabilities incident to woman — designate him 
as the world's worker. While private life is his best 
sphere and his happiest lot, he may not slip his neck 
from the yoke of public responsibility. If women were 
needed in public life, they would be in the same con- 
dition — they would have no right to decline public 
duty ; but, in the present constitution of society, they 
are not needed. Duty, therefore, does not call them 



238 Gold- Foil. 

into public life, and they have the right and the privi- 
lege to remain away from public affairs — a privilege 
which, if properly estimated by them, would prove to 
them that, for whatever God has denied to them, and 
for whatever of hardship He has laid upon them, He 
has made abundant compensations. 

It is strange that, in matters like this, men and wo- 
men will not receive the testimony of competent expe- 
rience. There is no worthy public man living who will 
not testify to the surpassing excellence and charm of 
private life. The higher a man is raised in public life, 
the more is he removed from that sympathy with the 
popular heart which flows from common pursuits and a 
common condition. The frigid isolation of power, the 
vexations of popular misconstruction, the jealousy and 
envy of mean minds, the clash of public duty with 
private friendship — all these are hard to bear, and there 
is no sensitive and worthy nature that will not shrink 
from them. The very best of those whom the world 
has delighted to honor, turn from the dreary loneliness 
of their sphere to the simple joys of the private life 
they have left — to its honest, neighborly friendships, its 
pure habits, its quiet flow of family life, its freedom 
from care, and its pleasures, with a yearning memory, 
and sometimes — nay, often — with a memory which 
does not fail to lament the loss of a sensibility that 
ought to be touched to tears. 

I am inclined to think that much of this vicious 



Public and Private Life. 239 

longing for public life and notoriety arises from a vice 
in the character of the private life in which it is born. 
I am convinced that much of it would be obviated if 
private life were all that it should be. Man is a social 
being, and, in his love of approbation, seeks for the 
recognition of society. If private life moved in large 
circles, he would get this recognition, and be content 
with it ; but it is a fact, that private life is too much 
without congenial relationships. It is essentially selfish, 
and helps to cherish rather than to destroy the appetite 
for public life. In looking over the world of public life, 
and the world of those who are seeking it for its own 
sake, I think it will be found that a large majority of 
its men and women are those whose private life is 
meagre in its rewards, or positively unhappy. I be- 
lieve that the majority of notoriety-hunters are men 
and women with uncongenial companions, or with no 
companions at all, or with an insufficient circle of 
friends, or with a circle of insufficient friends. If 
private life were entirely what it should be, this disease 
would doubtless be greatly abated. 

I suppose that no one can read the Evangelists with- 
out being impressed with the evident shrinking of the 
Master from publicity. The performance of many a 
notable miracle was followed by the command that it 
should not be published. u See that thou tell no man," 
was His modest mandate. He preached in the syna- 
gogues, on the mountains, and by the water-side, but it 



240 Gold-Foil. 

was because He had a work to do — a mission to per- 
form. His severest words were for those who prayed at 
the corners of the streets, and gave their alms to be 
seen of men. There was nothing meaner in His eyes 
than the thirst for notoriety, and some of the most 
charming exhibitions of his character were given in the 
private circle of His disciples, and in the humble homes 
of such as Mary and Martha. His public life was a life 
of service. He had a work to do, and was straitened 
juntil it should be accomplished. His was a life of priva- 
tion and discomfort. With the burden of a public life 
upon Him, moving among the palaces of Jerusalem and 
the rural homes of the villages of Judea, it was more 
than an exhibition of his poverty when He said — 
" Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." 

It will, of course, be useless for me to talk to those 
who have eaten of the insane root ; but to the world 
of young life, now emerging into manhood and woman- 
hood, something may perhaps be said with profit. 
There is nothing good in public life, nothing valuable 
in notoriety, that can compensate, for the abandonment 
of a private sphere, those men and women who make 
the sacrifice. If duty call you to office, or a worthy 
character and worthy works lift you into public notice, 
bear the honor well, but grudge the smallest charm 
that it steals from your private life. Let that be as gen- 
erous in its conditions and as wide in its sympathies as 

\ 



Public and Private Life. 241 

you can make it, and be sure that in it will be found 
the truest wealth that the world can give you. Learn 
to look upon all hunters of notoriety, for notoriety's 
sake, all itching for public life for the sake of its pub- 
licity, all greed for office for the purpose of catching 
the public eye, with contempt, as the meanest of all 
mean ambitions. And when you find yourself listening 
to the suggestions of an ambition like this, regard it as 
a disease, which only a more worthy and generous pri- 
vate life can cure. 
11 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

HOME. 

"The fire burns brightest on one's own hearth." 

"A tree often transplanted neither grows nor thrives." 

" He who is far from home is near to harm." 

" He who is everywhere is no where." _ 

WIND and water wander round the world, and 
grow fresher for the journey. The lost dia- 
mond knows no difference between the dust where it 
lies and the bosom from which it fell ; but every thing 
that has vitality requires a home. Every thing that 
lives seeks to establish permanent relations with that 
upon which it must depend for supplies. Every plant 
and every animal has its country, and in that country a 
favorite location, where it finds that which will give it 
the healthiest development, and the most luxurious life. 
Maize will not grow in England, and oranges are not 
gathered in Lapland. The white bear pines and dies 
under the equator, and the lion refuses to live in polar 
latitudes. The elm of a century may not be trans- 
planted with safety, unless a large portion of its home 



Home. 243 

be taken with it. In jungles and dens, in root-beds and 
parasitic footholds, in rivers, and brooks, and bays, in 
lakes and seas, in cabins, and tents, and palaces, every 
thing that lives, from the lowest animal and plant to 
the lordliest man, has a home — a place, or a region, 
with whose resources its vitality has established rela- 
tions. I have no doubt, with analogy only for the basis 
of my belief, that God, the fountain of life, has a home, 
and that there is somewhere in space a place which we 
call heaven. 

What is true of all organic material life is equally true 
of all mental and spiritual life. It is not because the 
soul is the tenant of a body which must have a home, 
that it, too, is subjected to a like necessity. The soul 
is alive, and must feed that it may continue to live, and 
that it may thrive. It takes root in material things, or 
in the spiritual facts that invest and permeate them, no 
less than in society, through multiplied filaments of re- 
lation ; and its roots may never be violently dislocated 
without serious damage to its life. Let a man be re- 
moved from his accustomed place in the world, and 
from the society of wife and children, and friends and 
neighbors, and twenty-four hours will suffice to make 
him a weaker man, and to institute in him either a gen- 
eral or a special process of demoralization. The home- 
sickness of the Swiss soldier is a genuine disease, with 
a natural cause which operates independently of his 
will and beyond his control. The soul that has once 



244 Gold-Foil. 

adjusted itself to its conditions, and has found the food 
necessary to nourish .its growth and augment its vital 
wealth, is nearest to its good ; and the moment it leaves 
these conditions for those which are strange, it ap- 
proaches its evil. Let the accustomed influences which 
hold it to virtue, and strengthen its power to resist 
temptation, and nourish its religious life, be escaped 
from, and it will more readily become the prey of its 
own evil propensities, and of the demoralizing influ- 
ences that assail it from without. 

These facts find confirmation in familiar popular ex- 
perience. The influence of vacation and summer travel 
has been felt by multitudes. Some of our most exem- 
plary men, who have never been known to kick over 
the traces of propriety at home, break in the dasher and 
run away with the vehicle at a sea-side hotel. The 
glass of wine, which never meets their lips at home, is 
indulged in without alarm among strangers. Bowling 
alleys and whist tables and billiard rooms, which are 
considered very bad things when among acquaintances, 
are transformed into excellent institutions in distant 
locations. Dignified gentlemen — officers of the church 
and officers of the state — become boyish and hilarious 
— not unfrequently uproarious — in an unfamiliar pres- 
ence. The cords of the moral nature, kept taut in the 
presence of familiar associates, adapt themselves with 
marvellous readiness to the prevalent feebleness of ten- 
sion found in the humid atmosphere of watering places. 



Home, 245 

Fixedness of location becomes, then, a condition 
vitally necessary to the growth of a true character, and 
the preservation of the health and harmony of the 
functions of the soul. The soul, like the body, lives by 
what it feeds on. It must increase, or it must diminish. 
Travel has its benefits, but they are indirect. They 
come from rest — not from growth. The direct influ- 
ence of travel is dissipation. No man ever comes back 
from travel with his powers unimpaired. The power to 
concentrate the mind, and to perform labor in the ac- 
customed way, is, in a measure, lost, and must be re- 
acquired. Now, if this condition of fixedness be 
necessary to those who already possess character and 
Christian principle, how much more necessary it is to 
those who are mainly held to propriety and virtue by 
outward influences. The young men who leave Chris- 
tian homes in the country, go to the city, and, finding 
the restraints of home removed, plunge into various 
forms of sin. The young women who gather in board- 
ing-houses, which are so far without a home-character 
that they are regarded only as places to eat and sleep 
in, rarely fail of receiving serious moral injury. A con- 
stant traveller who is constantly devout may possibly 
exist, but I have never seen him. The itinerant pro- 
fessions have never, I believe, been noted for exhibitions 
of intellectual growth, or profound piety. Gold hunters 
in California and Australia become in a few months 
semi- savages. No genuine observer can decide other- 



246 Gold-Foil. 

wise than that the homes of a nation are the bulwarks 
of personal and national safety and thrift. A curse 
upon all those fantastic methods of living, dreamed of 
by socialism and communism, which would sacrifice 
home to the meagre economies of great establishments, 
where humanity is fed in stalls like cattle ! 

I may legitimately qualify or adapt what I have 
said so far as to admit that a poor home with a poor 
location may be exchanged for a better one. A plant 
may be dislocated from an old, and removed to a new 
bed, not unfrequently with advantage. It may exhaust 
the soil where it stands, and demand more room for its 
roots. I have seen many men greatly improved by 
transplantation, but the process of adaptation and ac- 
climation through which they were obliged to pass, 
before they could establish intimate relations with the 
new soil, was proof of the difficulty and danger of the 
process. This transplanting process is constantly going 
on, however, with good results. The wife in the new 
home is more than the daughter in the old one. New 
food, new influences, more room, fresh functions are 
always beckoning t us to better locations ; but the lives 
are comparatively few that exhaust a home of medium 
advantages. The acquisition of a good home is one of 
the first objects of life — a home where the soul has ex- 
clusive rights — a home where it may grow undisturbed, 
sending out its roots into a fertile society, and lifting 
up its branches into the sunlight of heaven— a home 



Home. 247 

out from which the soul may go on its errands and 
enterprises , and to which it may return for its rewards 
— a home which, along the conduits of memory, may 
bear pure nourishment to children and children's chil- 
dren while it stands, and even after it has fallen. 

I recall a home like this, long since left behind in 
the journey of life ; and its memory floats back over 
me with a shower of emotions and thoughts toward 
whose precious fall my heart opens itself greedily like 
a thirsty flower. It is a home among the mountains — - 
humble and homely — but priceless in its wealth of asso- 
ciatons. The waterfall sings again in my ears, as it 
used to sing through the dreamy, mysterious nights. 
The rose at the gate, the patch of tansy under the win- 
dow, the neighboring orchard, the old elm, the grand 
machinery of storms and showers, the little smithy 
under the hill that flamed with strange light through 
the dull winter evenings, the wood-pile at the door, the 
ghostly white birches on the hill, and the dim blue 
haze upon the retiring mountains — all these come back 
to me with an appeal which touches my heart and 
moistens my eyes. I sit again in the doorway at sum- 
mer nightfall, eating my bread and milk, looking off 
upon the darkening landscape, and listening to the 
shouts of boys upon the hill-side, calling or driving 
homeward the reluctant herds. I watch again the 
devious way of the dusky night-hawk along the twilight 
sky, and listen to his measured note, and the breezy 



248 Gold-Foil, 

boom that accompanies his headlong plunge toward the 
earth. 

Even the old barn, crazy in every timber and gap- 
ing at every joint, has charms for me. I try again 
the breathless leap from the great beams into the bay. 
I sit again on the threshold of the widely open doors 
— open to the soft south wind of spring — and watch 
the cattle, whose faces look half human to me, as they 
sun themselves, and peacefully ruminate, while, drop 
by drop, the dissolving snow upon the roof drills holes 
through the wasting drifts beneath the eaves, down into 
the oozing offal of the yard. The first little lambs of 
the season toddle by the side of their dams, and utter 
their feeble bleatings, while the flock nibble at the hay- 
rick, or a pair of rival wethers try the strength of their 
skulls in an encounter, half in earnest and half in play. 
The proud old rooster crows upon his dunghill throne, 
and some delighted member of his silly family leaves 
her nest, and tells to her mates and to me that there is 
another egg in the world. The old horse whinnies in 
his stall, and calls to me for food. I look up to the 
roof, and think of last year's swallows — soon to return 
again — and hear the tortions of their musical morocco, 
as it wraps their young, and catch a glimpse of angular 
sky through the diamond-shaped opening that gave 
them ingress and egress. How, I know not, and care 
not, but that old barn is a part of myself — it has entered 
into my life, and given me growth and wealth. 



Home. 249 

But I look into the house again, where the life 
abides which has appropriated these things, and finds 
among them its home. The hour of evening has come, 
the lamps are lighted, and a good man in middle life — 
though very old he seems to me — takes down the well- 
worn Bible, and reads a chapter from its hallowed 
pages. A sweet woman sits at his side, with my sleepy 
head upon her knee, and brothers and sisters are 
grouped reverently around. I do not understand the 
words, but I have been told that they are the words of 
God, and I believe it. The long chapter ends, and 
then we all kneel down, and the good man prays. I 
fall asleep with my head in the chair, and the next 
morning remember nothing of the way in which I went 
to bed. After breakfast the Bible is taken down, and 
the good man prays again ; and again and again is the 
worship repeated through all the days of many golden 
years. The pleasant converse of the fireside, the 
simple songs of home, the words of encouragement as 
I bend over my school-tasks, the kiss as I lie down to 
rest, the patient bearing with the freaks of my restless 
nature, the gentle counsels mingled with reproofs and 
approvals, the sympathy that meets and assuages every 
sorrow and sweetens every little success— all these re- 
turn to me amid the responsibilities which press upon 
me now, and I feel as if I had once lived in heaven, 
and, straying, had lost my way. 

Well, the good man grew old and weary, and fell 
u* 



250 Go Id- Foil. 

asleep at last, with blessings on his lips for me. Some 
of those who called him father lie side by side with him 
in the same calm sleep. The others are scattered, and 
dwell in new homes, and the old house and barn and 
orchard have passed into the possession of strangers, 
who have learned, or are learning, to look back upon 
them as I do now. Lost, ruined, forever left behind, 
that home is mine to-day as truly as it ever was, for 
have I not brought it away with me, and shown it to 
you? It was the home of my boyhood. In it I found 
my first mental food, and by it was my young soul fash- 
ioned. To me, through weary years, and many dangers 
and sorrows, it has been a perennial fountain of delight 
and purifying influences, simply because it was my 
home, and was and is a part of me. The rose at the 
gate blooms for me now. The landscape comes when I 
summon it, and I hear the voices that call to me from 
lips which memory makes immortal. 

Thus the memory of the past joins hands with the ex- 
perience and observation of to-day, to illustrate and en- 
force the philosophy which I have propounded. A 
homeless man, or a man hopeless of home, is a ruined 
man. A man who, in the struggles of life, has no home 
to retire to, in fact or in memory, is without life's best 
rewards and life's best defences. Away from heme, 
shut off from the income of those influences which feed 
his life — from those relations along which the life of God 
is accustomed to flow to him — a man stands exactly 



Home. 251 

where evil will the most readily get the mastery of him. 
A man is always nearest to his good when at home, and 
farthest from it when away. 

One of the very first duties of life, I say again, is the 
establishment of a home which shall be to us and to our 
children the fountain and reservoir of our best life ; and 
this home should be a permanent one, if possible. 
Home is the centre of every true life, the place where 
all sweet affections are brought forth and nurtured, the 
spot to which memory clings the most fondly, and to 
which the wanderer returns the most gladly. It is worth 
a life of care and labor to win for ourselves, and the dear 
children whom we love as ourselves, a home whose in- 
fluence shall enrich us and them while life lasts. God 
pity the poor child who cannot associate his youth with 
some dear spot where he drank in life's freshness, and 
shaped the character he bears ! 

The choosing of a home is one of the most momentous 
steps a man is ever called upon to make. If we plant a 
tree with the hope to sit some time beneath its shadow, 
and eat of its fruit, we do not plant it in the sand, or in 
a stream of running water. It is astonishing to see the 
multitudes that thoughtlessly plant their homes in moral 
and intellectual deserts — to see them building houses 
where there is no society, or only that which is bad, 
where the church-bell is never heard, and where a fertile 
and fruitful home-life is absolutely impossible. For 
money men will rush from the healthful and pleasant 



252 Gold- Foil. 

country village to the feverish and stony city, or forsake 
a thousand privileges that are valuable beyond all price, 
and settle in a wilderness where the degeneration of 
their home is certain. Circumstances may force one 
into locations like these, but they can only be regarded 
as calamitous. Communion is the law of growth, and 
homes only thrive where they sustain relations with each 
other. 

The sweetest type of heaven is home — nay, heaven 
itself is the home for whose acquisition we are to strive 
the most strongly. Home, in one form and another, is 
the great object of life. It stands at the end of every 
day's labor, and beckons us to its bosom, and life would 
be cheerless and meaningless, did we not discern across 
the river that divides it from the life beyond, glimpses 
of the pleasant mansions prepared for us. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

LEARNING AND WISDOM. 

"A mere scholar at court is an ass among apes." 
'* A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning." 
** Wisdom does not always speak in Greek and Latin." 
"A man must sell his ware at the rate of the market." 

THE intrinsic value of learning, as a possession and a 
power, is exhibited most remarkably, perhaps, in 
a man who knows every thing, and is nothing. He may 
be likened to a pond full of water, without an outlet. 
The water is all very well in itself, though none the bet- 
ter for being stagnant. A few lazy lily-pads may seek 
the sun upon its surface, but its chief office is to drink 
starlight, to entertain the shadows of the tall trees that 
grow upon its banks, and to receive them when they fall. 
If it can be artificially tapped, for the purpose of feed- 
ing some literary institution, as the Bostonians have 
tapped the Cochituate, it is very well ; and this seems to 
be about the only use it can be appropriated to. Very 
unlike this is the learning that has a natural, common- 
sense delivery, through a stream that carries out into the 



254 Gold- Foil. 

world, full and free, its aggregated crystal, to feed the 
roots of flowers and grasses, and slake the thirst of 
flocks and herds, and torture the sunshine as it slides 
down rocky rapids, and turn the mill-wheel that grinds 
the corn and weaves the fabrics of the poor, and 

"Repeat the music of the rain" 

at the feet of plashy waterfalls, and join and mingle in 
the river of human action that sweeps on to fill the 
ocean of human achievement. I do not think that it 
can be said, truthfully, that learning possesses intrinsic, 
independent value, or that it has power, in and of itself, 
to make a man either valuable to himself or the world. 
Learning may as well lie dormant in dead books as in 
dead men. I would as soon have a library that costs 
nothing, after purchase, but the dusting, as a learned 
man who eats and drinks and wears respectable broad- 
cloth. In fact, the library is more ornamental and less 
troublesome than the man, and is not always painfully 
reminding one that it might possibly have made a good 
tin-peddler if it had begun early enough in life. 

I am aware that this is not the usual view of this sub- 
ject. Some, perhaps, assent to it rationally, but prac- 
tically it is hardly entertained at all. The pupil in the 
humblest school is estimated entirely according to his 
capacity to cram into his mental maw and retain the 
facts in philosophy, science, and history set before him. 
Memory is every thing ; reason, thorough intellectual 



Learning and Wisdom, 255 

digestion, and symmetrical intellectual development, 
are nothing. This runs up the whole grade of educa- 
tional institutions, and comes to a head not unfre- 
quently on Commencement days, when the ass of a 
class pronounces the valedictory, to subside into nonen- 
tity, and the really educated man leaves without an ap- 
pointment, and with the pitying contempt of the Faculty, 
to win the world's prizes, reflect honor upon the college, 
and to take rank among the intellectual giants of his 
time. Learning and education are widely deemed iden- 
tical things and synonymous words. , Consequently we 
have among the learned, in a work-a-day world like this, 
constant surprises. They find themselves shelved, laid 
aside, left behind, while the unlearned take their places 
in the world's eye, in the world's heart, and in the 
world's work. Cobblers represent a state full of col- 
leges in the national councils, machinists become bril- 
liant speakers and wise governors, and country mer- 
chants stand at the head of educational systems that 
embrace the growing mind of a State. All the develop- 
ments of the age serve to illustrate the superiority of 
wisdom and common sense to mere learning, and the 
utter worthlessness of all learning, when dissociated 
from those qualities and powers which can bring it into 
relation with the practical questions and every-day life 
of the time. 

I am not seeking to depreciate learning, but to de- 
fine its real value and its only value. . It has stood in 



256 Gold-Foil. 

the way of the world's progress, almost as much as it 
has contributed to it. Its tendency is to worship the 
old — to abide within the bounds of old formularies in- 
vented by a less developed life than ours, to look chaos- 
ward for light instead of millennium-ward, to seek for 
truth among the broken fountains of the schools rather 
than at truth's own fountain, to follow in the track of 
old systems grown too narrow for the expanding life 
of the present, and to enchain itself with the bonds of 
old creeds and old philosophies. The spirit of learning, 
particularly as manifested through the learned profes- 
sions, is an arrogant, self-sufficient, self-complacent, 
and proscriptive spirit. It lays its ban on all schemes 
of improvement, all experimental search for truth, all 
speculation in the field of thought, which itself does 
not originate. All trade carried on outside its marts 
is contraband. It calls unlearned thinkers "quacks," 
indiscriminately. All systems of philosophy and art 
of which it is not the father, are illegitimate. 

Medicine is a "learned profession," and its learning 
has been converted into its bane. It is bound to its 
books, and its formulas, and its unreasoning routine 
with a devotion so insane, that its professors band 
themselves in societies by which every member is kept 
to his creed through fear of proscription, and by which 
all outside experimenters in the healing art, however 
truth-loving, ingenious and scientific, are professionally 
and socially damned. Any man who leaps out of the 



Learning and Wisdom. 257 

regular old professional frying-pan, alights in a fire of 
professional malediction. It is all a regular physician's 
reputation is worth to seek for truth out of the well- 
trodden, regular channels, particularly if the new chan- 
nels have become objects of professional prejudice and 
jealousy. The consequence of this is, of course, to 
retard the progress of medicine as a healing art. Medi- 
cal learning has absolutely fought against every great 
medical discovery, and not unfrequently against im- 
portant discoveries in the constituent sciences. All 
other arts have advanced within the last century be- 
yond calculation. It has been a century of progress in 
art and discovery in science ; but we look in vain for 
those advances in medical science and art which place 
them even-footed with their thrifty sisterhood. 

Let me not be misapprehended in these statements. 
I am neither talking about nor against any system of 
medicine. I am simply condemning that arrogant 
spirit of professionally associated learning, which as- 
sumes the monopoly of all that is truly known of the 
subject of medicine, and the privilege and right of 
making all changes and discoveries in medical art and 
science. I condemn the spirit which refuses to see, and 
hear, and consider, and treat respectfully, all truth, by 
whatever man discovered — from whatever source it 
may proceed. I condemn the spirit which makes a 
man a bond-slave to a system devised by other men, 
and whose prominent effect is to create more reverence 



258 Gold- Foil. 

for authority than for truth. I condemn the spirit 
which sets learning above wisdom and common sense. 
I condemn the spirit which, in effect, binds men to a 
blind, unreasoning routine, and forbids their entrance 
into the field of intelligent, rational experiment. I 
condemn the spirit which makes medical heterodoxy a 
social crime, to be punished by social proscription. I 
condemn the spirit which is the principle hindrance to 
the development of the noblest, most humane, most 
useful, and most important of all the arts. 

The law, too, is a learned profession, whose only le- 
gitimate office is to promote the ends of justice among 
men, and whose constant practice is to pervert justice, 
or prevent it, by resort to the technicalities and forms 
with which it is hide-bound. There is no department 
of human interest that is so full of the lumber — the old 
dead stuff — of learning as the law. A simple matter 
of justice between man and man would seem to be a 
simple matter to adjudicate, on a competent represen- 
tation of facts. It would seem to be a matter easily to 
be handled and quickly disposed of ; but learning re- 
sorts to forms for delay, and picks flaws in forms for 
escape, and hunts among maggots for precedents, and 
bewilders with the array of authority, until that which 
is simple becomes complicated, and an affair of thirty 
minutes becomes a thing of ten years. I have such a 
respect for the law, that I believe that if every law and 
law-book ever written were smitten from existence, the 



Learning and Wisdom, 259 

honest, common-sense lawyers of to-day could frame 
codes of law and rules for their administration that 
would shorten and cheapen the processes of justice by 
the amount of nine-tenths. I believe that every law- 
yer believes this, yet he allows this rotten, cumbersome 
conglomeration of relics of effete institutions, and pro- 
ducts of defunct ingenuities, to warp, and mould, and 
modify his nature, till he becomes a slave of authority 
and precedent in every thing, with red tape in every 
button-hole, and a green bag on his head. 

Religion is a simple thing, so simple that " a way- 
faring man, though a fool, need not err therein." The 
only fountain of religious truth is the Bible. We have 
it in our native tongue, and many a simple soul, with- 
out the aid of clergyman or schoolman, has drawn from 
it the inspiration of a new life and all the instruction 
that he needed touching his relations to God and men. 
Yet theology — human invention and human learning — 
has made religion a very complicated thing. It has 
elevated dogma, and creed, and formulary into promi- 
nence, and debased love and life into obscurity. It in- 
sists more on faith in tenets than in God, and denies to 
a Christian spirit the fellowship which it accords to 
rational belief. The disgraceful wrangles of the relig- 
ious newspapers, the great disputes of the schools, and 
the high controversies of the pulpit and the pamphlet, 
are the quarrels and strifes for mastery of theologians, 
not Christians — of learning, not love. Theology clings 



260 Gold-Foil. 

to old words and phrases after their life has departed. 
Theology is arrogant, selfish, and proud. Theology ex- 
cludes from the table of the Lord those whom He has 
accepted. Theology denies fellowship and communion 
to those whom Love expects to meet in Heaven. The- 
ology casts out of the synagogue those who rise to 
think, while Christ forgives those who stoop to sin, and, 
without condemnation, bids them sin no more. Theol- 
ogy builds rival churches, pits against each other rival 
sects, and wastes God's money. I believe that it would 
be every way better for the world, if every book of 
dogmatic and controversial theology could be blotted 
out of existence, and Christendom were obliged to be- 
gin anew, drawing every thing from the great Book 
of Books, leaving Paul and Apollos, and Princeton, 
and New Haven, and Cambridge, behind, and learning 
of Him " who spake as never man spake." 

The long and short of the matter is, that the learned 
world has become so deeply involved in the thoughts 
of those who have gone before — so accustomed to fol- 
lowing old channels, and to paying reverence to the 
opinions and systems of schools, that it cannot step out 
freely into the field of truth and handle things as it 
finds them. The common sense that deals with things 
instead of systems which treat of them, and the wisdom 
which grows out of this intimate contact and loving as- 
sociation with the actualities of human life and expe- 
rience, are worth more to the world than all the learn- 



Lear fling and Wisdom. 261 

ing in it. This handling of the vital realities of to-day 
with the gloves of dead men ; this slow dragging of 
the trains of the present over old grass-grown turn- 
pikes ; this old monopoly of power and privilege among 
interests that touch every individual — the highest and 
the humblest; this stopping of the wheels of progress, 
at every toll-gate and frontier, for the benefit of learned 
publicans, is certainly against the common sense of the 
world, as it undoubtedly is against " the spirit of the 
age," if anybody knows exactly what that is. Any 
thing and every thing which places fetters upon the 
spirit of inquiry, which blinds the eyes of discovery, 
and abridges the freedom of thought, whether it be 
contained in the lore of past ages or of the present 
time, is a thing to be contemned and abjured. A living 
man with a carcase lashed to his back may creep but he 
cannot run. 

Learning runs back for every thing, and reaches for- 
ward for nothing. It educates the young Christian 
mind of to-day by leading it through a literature whose 
highest inspirations were found in paganism. It seeks 
for models of style and expression among authors en- 
throned among the classical, who only became worthy 
of the distinction by laying their hearts by the side of 
Nature, that realm which is spread all around us now, 
illuminated with Christian light, yet forsaken for second- 
hand sources of instruction. It ignores the theory and 
the fact of human progress, and reverses the order of 



262 Gold-Foil. 

nature by making an old world obedient to a young 
world. 

But I stay too long from the definition of the legiti- 
mate sphere and real value of learning. Whenever 
learning becomes tributary to wisdom, it occupies its 
legitimate sphere, and by the amount of its tribute is it 
valuable. The soul that abides in learning as an end — 
that pursues learning as an end — that finds in it food, 
raiment, and guidance — that surrenders itself to the 
records of other minds, perverts learning and perverts 
itself. The soul that uses learning as a means by which 
to project itself into a higher life — that stands upon it 
with all its truth and all its falsehood, as upon a platform 
from which it may survey a better truth and a nobler 
issue — uses learning aright, and is enriched. The fu- 
ture is an untrodden realm. Around each step, as the 
world advances, new circumstances will gather, new 
emergencies arise, new problems present themselves for 
solution. With these circumstances, emergencies, and 
problems, the common sense and wisdom of the world 
are to deal, and not the world's learning. We do not 
repeat through unvarying cycles the experiences of the 
past. Comparatively little of the records of life and 
thought of the ages that are gone can have direct rela- 
tion to the ages that are to come. If the learned men 
of the present find themselves left behind in the race 
of life, it is simply and only because, while they have 
been walking among graves, or busying themselves 



Learning and Wisdom. 263 

with facts for which the real life of the world has no 
use, the wisdom and common sense of the world have 
got in advance of them. A man must sell his ware at 
the rate of the market, not only, but he must supply 
the market with what it demands. 

But learning has a noble value. It is like the mould 
that accumulates from the decay of each succeeding 
year of vegetation. It furnishes a humus into which the 
roots of mental and moral life may penetrate for nour- 
ishment, but out of which that life must spring and 
mount into the air and sunlight. Human life is not a 
potato — a bloated tuber that battens in the muck of 
other times, but a stalk of maize, burdened with golden 
fruitage, and whispering through all its leaves of the life 
within it and the influences without it. It is not a thing 
whose issue and end are in its roots, but in a life to 
which those roots are tributary ; and all the learning 
which may not be assimilated to that life is as valueless 
as the dust of its authors. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

RECEIVING AND DOING. 

*' Virtue consists in action." 

" He who does no more than another, is no better than another." 

**Let not him who has a mouth ask another to blow." 

" Do good if you expect to receive good." 

THERE is no healthy physical life without a proper 
balance of the active and receptive habitudes of 
the body. If a man eat too much and act too little, he 
will become gross and gouty, or dull and dyspeptic. If 
he act too much and eat too little, he will be weak and 
inefficient, or spasmodic and irascible. It is not enough 
to eat ; it is not enough to work ; but eating and work- 
ing should go hand in hand — the first being sufficient to 
supply the vital expenditure, and the vital expenditure 
being sufficient to exhaust the supply furnished by the 
food. By this balance, the digestive functions are kept 
sharp and healthy, and the muscular organs are devel- 
oped to the measure of their power. The man who 
eats much and works little is necessarily a stupid man ; 
but the man who expends in labor what he has received 



Receiving and Doing. 265 

in food, in a legitimate way, finds himself, under favor- 
able conditions, the possessor of a happy and a healthy 
life. 

We can have no better illustration than this of the 
necessity to healthy mental life of the preservation of a 
proper balance between the active and receptive atti- 
tudes and habitudes of the mind. The mind that imag- 
ines that its grand good is to be achieved while in its re- 
ceptive attitude — that is bent on receiving and acquiring 
— will find itself greatly mistaken ; yet the theory of 
education is mainly the theory of acquiring, and contem- 
plates almost entirely a receptive habit. The honors 
paid to simple learning are tributes to the faculty and 
fact of mental stuffing. A large proportion of the very 
learned men of the world are those who really do noth- 
ing for themselves or their race — who are not recognized 
as powers in society, and whose simplicity, lack of com- 
mon sense, and inability to take care of themselves, 
make them the laughing-stock of boys who have ci- 
phered through the Rule of Three, and learned to look 
out for number one. There is a curse on all intellectual 
gormandizing — all reception of mental food that is not 
made tributary to mental power. An individual who is 
simply a man of learning — whose life has been expended 
in acquisition — is no man at all. A man of science who 
does not go out from books into discovery, who does not 
aim to apply his knowledge to practical life, or who does 
not become active in organizing and imparting the 
12 



266 Gold-Foil. 

knowledge he has acquired, must become intellectually 
an invalid, or an imbecile. 

This is an age of reading, and I am glad that it is ; 
but there is a great deal of reading that is as much 
mental dissipation as there is eating that is a waste of 
bodily power. Newspapers, books, and magazines, are 
devoured by the cargo, for which the devourers render 
no return, and from which they gain no strength. A 
great reader — a constant and universal reader — is rarely 
a good worker. A receptive habit of mind, that can 
only find satisfaction in devouring, without digesting, 
illimitable print, is mental death to a man. It is essen- 
tial dissipation, opposed alike to healthy mental life and 
development, and positive usefulness in the world. This 
perfect balance between reception and action — between 
acquiring and doing — cannot be disturbed in the men- 
tal any more than in the muscular world, without bring- 
ing with it disease and imbecility. 

The facts that" I have stated with regard to the body 
and the mind are important enough in themselves to 
call for exhibition, but they serve to illustrate, with 
peculiar force, the dangers of the receptive habit that 
prevails in the realm of spiritual things. It is no less 
an age of preaching than of reading. All over this 
land congregations of uncounted thousands go up every 
Sunday to be played upon by sermons — to have their 
intellects quickened, their sympathies excited, their 
imaginations inspired, and their whole spiritual natures 



Receiving and Doing. 267 

acted upon by their preacher. They want a morning 
sermon, and an afternoon sermon, and many of them 
would be glad to have an evening sermon. They go to 
their weekly prayer-meeting, and would always be glad 
to have a sermon there. They like to have their hearts 
raked open and stirred up by an eloquent exhortation, 
or melted by the pathos of a touching prayer. Their 
hearts are not only open and crying for more from the 
preacher, but they are open toward God, and crying to 
Him for more. They thirst for the influx of divine influ- 
ences that shall elevate their spiritual frame. Recep- 
tive always, thirsting and hungering always, always 
eating and drinking, they become thoroughly dissipated 
in religion, their spiritual life degenerates into an emo- 
tional form, and so they become unfitted for Christian 
action. 

I have known multitudes of good and pure people 
who were almost utterly useless in the world, and 
powerless in themselves, by remaining for years in this 
strictly receptive attitude. I have known multitudes 
to go to a prayer-meeting to have a good time, pre- 
cisely the same as others would go to a ball to have a 
good time. Their religious exercises have become a 
sort of holy amusement. They go to be stirred and 
refreshed, to have their emotions excited, and to re- 
ceive something which shall make them feel. They 
care not so much to learn how to do better as to be 
made to feel better. Exaltation of emotion — spiritual 



268 Gold-Foil. 

intoxication — is the object mainly sought for. Woe be 
to the preacher if he fail so to act upon them as to 
procure the fulfilment of this object. It will not be 
enough that he lay down the law and line of duty with 
faithfulness, and spend his days in visits and labors of 
sympathy and love. He must preach with power ; he 
must pour forth with abundance ; he must bring stimu- 
lating draughts to the greedy lips of decaying emo- 
tions, or he will be proscribed. 

It is precisely thus with the music of the sanctuary. 
The number of hearts that go up actively in a song of 
praise, in a congregation of five hundred persons, is 
very small. Hearts and ears are thrown open to drink 
in the influence of the music, as if the congregation, 
and not God, were addressed by the hymn. In the 
minds of too many ministers prayer itself is something 
to be addressed in about equal parts to the congrega- 
tion and to the Most High. It is regarded not alto- 
gether as the vehicle for aspiration and petition, but as 
a portion of the machinery by which their people are 
to be moved. I have heard theology, exhortation, and 
even personal condemnation mingled with addresses to 
the throne — not unfrequently a whole family history. 
It is hard sometimes to tell a sermon from a prayer. If 
ministers so far forget the proprieties of prayer as to 
prostitute it to the purposes of declamation, the people 
may well talk of "eloquent prayers," and of men 
" gifted in prayer," and forget that it is God and not 



Receiving and Doing. 269 

themselves who is the object addressed. Thus it is 
that nearly all the " means of grace," technically speak- 
ing, contemplate a receptive attitude on the part of the 
people. They are preached to, sung to, prayed to ; 
and, as the preaching and singing and praying are cal- 
culated to feed their emotional natures, or otherwise, 
are they satisfied or dissatisfied. 

Now the whole tendency of this thing is to spiritual 
debility and imbecili^r. Some of the most inefficient 
churches in this country are those which have what is 
called great preaching, and " splendid music." They 
enjoy their Sabbath ; they have most refreshing seasons 
of communion, they hold delightful prayer-meetings, 
and imagine that all is right with them, while they see 
no results of good to others around them, and wonder 
at it. How long must the world live before the 
Christian church will learn that its power in the world 
depends on what it does, and not on what it feels ? 
How long must the church live before it will learn that 
strength is won by action, and success by work, and 
that all this immeasurable feeding without action and 
work is a positive damage to^t — that it is the procurer 
of spiritual obesity, gout, and debility ? 

The world of Christian life wants to be turned 
squarely around, and be made to assume a new attitude. 
The world is never to be converted by Christian feel- 
ing. What difference will it make with my careless 
neighbor that I have enjoyed a fine sermon, if it do not 



270 Gold-Foil. 

move me to efforts for his good ? What will it avail 
my sweet friend who languishes upon her death-bed 
that my sympathies have been played upon by eloquent 
lips, if they do not lead me to her bedside with offices 
of kindness and words of cheer ? Why and how is the 
world better for the powerful representation to me of 
the claims of Christianity, if it do not stir me up to the 
work of gathering and saving the neglected little ones 
who are growing into a vicious and ignorant manhood 
and womanhood ? Am I selfishly to congratulate my- 
self that I have obtained new views of the divine na- 
ture and the divine love, without zealously endeavoring 
to bring the dumb and dead souls around me to the 
same recognition? "He that does no more than 
another is no better than another." Life has language 
always. Expression is the natural offspring of posses- 
sion. If my life and my spiritual possessions exceed 
the measure of another man, they will demonstrate 
their superiority in action. If my humane but un- 
christian neighbor do more good than I do, then his 
humanity, as a motive principle of life, is better than 
my Christianity. 

There are three distinct aspects in which Christian 
action may be viewed with propriety and profit. The 
first relates to spiritual development. There can be no 
growth of power, in any faculty of the soul, or any 
combination of faculties, without use. Action is the 
law and condition of spiritual development, as it is of 



Receiving and Doing. 271 

muscular development. That which we try to do, and 
persist in doing, becomes easy to do, not because its 
nature is changed, but because our power to do is de- 
veloped. Christian beneficence is a grace that grows 
by cultivation. A man who is accustomed to give is 
the man who gives freely and gladly. An excellent 
thing for spiritual plethora is the bleeding of the pocket- 
book. It is only those who do — who act — that become 
powers in the Christian world. A man may hear a 
hundred and fifty sermons in a year, and five hundred 
prayers and as many hymns, and be melted and stirred 
and exalted by them, and still be a spiritual baby, 
without nerve, or faculty, or power, and even without 
having learned any thing practically. It is only those 
who do their duty that learn the doctrine aright. It 
is only those who come into contact with human nature 
and human condition in the work of Christianity that 
learn and appreciate its relation to that nature and 
condition. We know the truth of a principle by apply- 
ing it in practice. The principle of Davy's safety 
lamp may be received as true, but it is not known to 
be true till the lamp is made and used. We accept the 
proposition that it is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive, but we know nothing about it, until we try it 
and demonstrate it. It is in the line of duty that all 
the highest truth becomes incorporated into the soul's 
knowledge. A Christian who does nothing is not only 
undeveloped as a man of power, but he absolutely 



272 Gold-Foil. 

knows nothing. All truth is to be digested, assimi- 
lated, developed into life, before it really becomes a 
possession — no less than before it becomes a power. 

The second aspect in which Christian action may 
be viewed is that which relates to the outside world. 
In the development of the subject this has already 
been touched upon, but more remains to be said. It 
is a notorious and well-recognized fact that, consider- 
ing the agencies engaged in the Christian work, the 
results are small. I place the responsibility for these 
insignificant results upon the constantly receptive and 
persistently inactive position of the church itself. 
There was never so much good preaching, praying, 
and singing in the world as now. There was never a 
more general disposition to " go to meeting." The 
Christian ministry were never so put up to the exhibi- 
tion of every faculty within them as in this age. It is 
all feeding, feeding, feeding. It is all ministry to the 
greedy flock. We pay better salaries than we used to 
pay, and expect more for the money, yet we grow dead 
and dumb from year to year. The church is not gen- 
erally aggressive. Now and then, here and there, it 
becomes active, and immediately there springs up a 
great reformation, but the lesson is unheeded, and we 
go on gorging and gormandizing, and wonder why 
nothing comes of it but increasing weakness and a 
growing disposition to inaction. 

It is not enough that the Christian give his money 



Receiving and Doing. 273 

to feed the poor, and sustain efforts for the reclamation 
of the vicious, and send the Gospel to the heathen, and 
support the church at home. The money is wanted, 
and there must be a more general opening of the purse- 
strings before very great things will be accomplished ; 
but more than all is wanted direct personal effort on 
the part of the church. Everywhere a Christian should 
be a positive power, distinctly pronounced in some 
way, so that wherever he carries himself, he will carry 
the power of Christianity. The world says " what 
does he more than others ? " of the constantly recep- 
tive Christian, and entertains a contempt as damaging 
as it is just for all those Christians who do nothing. 

The opinion that the world entertains of a man's 
Christianity is usually a just one. It is rarely far from 
right. It is perfectly legitimate to say of a man who 
professes to be a Christian, and gives no evidence in 
his life and influence of the possession of Christianity 
as a motive power, that his religion is vain. 

It is not only essential to an undefiled religion, that a 
man keep himself unspotted from the world, but he 
must visit the widows and the fatherless — demonstrate 
the life in him by ministry. When the church shall be- 
come active, and leave behind its laziness and languor, 
and seek for food that it may have more power to work, 
and expend the strength it gets, the world will be con- 
verted, and it is pretty safe to say that it will not be 

before. 

12* 



274 Gold-Foil. 

The third aspect in which Christian action may be 
viewed, contemplates its relations to God himself. 
Many a man conscientiously goes up to the weekly 
pulpit-feeding, through storm and sickness, as a matter 
of duty, who never thinks of doing a work of Christian 
mercy, or engaging in any kind of ministry during the 
week. Sometimes a considerable sacrifice of time and 
convenience is made, in order to attend the weekly 
prayer-meeting, by those, who manage to keep them- 
selves comfortable in their consciences only by this 
means. Now the Christian world knows its duty well 
enough. It has no need of half the teaching it gets. It 
is always feeding beyond its necessities, and, as I hon- 
estly believe, to its own damage. Let it ask itself which 
would please its Master best — teaching some ignorant 
child the way of life, or going to hear a great sermon — 
visiting and consoling some poor mourner, or going to a 
prayer-meeting — stirring up some weak soul to duty, or 
seeking for an hour of emotional excitement — going to 
meeting always, or laboring occasionally for the recla- 
mation of some sad wanderer from the path of virtue ? 

Considering the amount of good which the church has 
received, how great a return has it rendered? What is 
it doing, and what has it done, outside of its own imme- 
diate necessities ? It hires ministers, and pays for tracts, 
and contents itself with the acquisition of a cartilaginous 
and an oleaginous spirit and life. Oh, for bone and 
muscle, and blood and nerve, and courage and power ! 



Receiving and Doing. 275 

Is religion one of the fine arts, that it should consist in 
going to meeting in good clothes every Sunday, saying 
grace at table, and praying night and morning ? Is there 
every thing to receive, and nothing to give ? Are we so 
literally a flock that we have nothing to do but to be fed 
all the year, yielding only the annual fleece which forms 
our pastor's salary ? Practically this is the popular 
Christian notion, but how miserably unworthy it is ! 

Action, then, is alike the condition of the development 
of Christian life as it relates to the Christian himself, of 
aggressiveness as it relates to the world, and of appro- 
priate return for benefits received. Religion is not a 
thing of emotion exclusively, nor even mainly. It is a 
motive power of life in all beneficent directions toward 
man, and in all devotional ways toward God. It is a life 
of reception in one aspect, and a life of action in another. 
Of him to whom much is given much is required. Every 
imbibition of truth and every influx of spiritual life is to 
thrill along the nerves, and invade the veins, of the 
soul's faculties, and find manifestation in action. Emo- 
tion, feeling — these are well enough if they feed the 
springs of power. Prayer, praise, preaching — these are 
all good, and never to be dispensed with ; but if the life 
to which they minister have no manifestation out of 
them, it is a failure. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE SECRET OF POPULARITY. 

*' Self-love is a mote in every man's eye. 1 ' 

M If you love yourself overmuch, nobody else will love you at all." 
" If I sleep, I sleep for myself; if I work, I know not for whom." 
"The way to be admired is to be what we love to be thought." 

THERE is a class of men in every community that, 
more than any other class, desires popularity, 
and less than any other class gets it. They may be 
men of pleasant address and honorable dealing, but 
there is something about them that repels the popular 
sympathy. If the people were to be questioned as to 
the reasons of their antipathy, they would, in most in- 
stances, find it difficult to make an intelligent answer. 
They would say with Tom Brown : — 

"I do not love thee, Doctor Fell; 
The reason why I cannot tell, 
But this alone I know full well — 
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell ! " 

The unfailing heart recognizes an unworthy and 
repulsive element in these men, though the intellect 
may fail to comprehend it. Now, if the intellect will 



The Secret of Popularity. 277 

make direct inquiry, it will find that these lovers of 
popularity are supremely selfish — that they love them- 
selves better than any thing, or any body else, and that 
all the popularity they long for and seek for is de- 
manded by their self-love. They are not men of gener- 
ous impulses, but of cool and painstaking calculation. 
If they make a gift, it is for a purpose. A policy that 
has its centre in self overrules all their actions. 

This element of popularity in a man's character is 
very little understood. On looking about us, we shall 
find the popular favor bestowed with comparatively 
little reference to personal character. Many a man, 
known to be immoral, will have troops of friends, while 
a multitude of others, of whom nothing bad can be 
said, will have the affections of no man. 

These facts show me how closely, side by side, the 
better intuitions and instinctive judgments of the world 
stand with the central principle of Christianity. The 
world, no less than Christianity — the great human 
heart, no less than the true religion — demands that 
men shall be unselfish before they receive personal 
affection and favor. Religion asks for more than un- 
selfishness, because it lays its claims upon personal 
character and personal devotion, but it starts at that, 
as the initial point. The world asks that a man shall 
be generous from natural impulse, and not from any 
special principle of policy. It is often that these im- 
pulsively generous men are impulsively vicious, yet 



278 Gold-Foil. 

this does not always, nor often, repel even the good 
from sympathy with them. We love .some men in spite 
of ourselves. Our judgment condemns them, our re- 
ligious feelings are offended by them ; yet the one ele- 
ment of good which they possess receives our admira- 
tion and our homage, and we return their cordial grip 
and greeting impulsively, and protest only in secret 
leisure. 

All of us like to stand well with our fellows. We 
thirst for popular esteem, and rejoice in popular good- 
will. This desire for popularity is universal, though it 
has its birth in widely various motives ; but it is never 
satisfied save when it is called forth by and to generous 
natures. The whole world loves Florence Nightingale, 
simply because she unselfishly sacrifices the ease and 
comfort of a luxurious home, for the purpose of minis- 
tering to the wants of the sick and wounded soldiers. 
Half of the world's admiration of Jenny Lind grows 
out of her characteristic benevolence. The rough fire- 
man who braves the dangers of a burning house, to 
save the life of some helpless inmate, is regarded as a 
hero, and we toss up our cap as he goes by us. The 
man or the woman who, from a generous impulse, risks 
danger and death for others, or who, from a similar 
impulse, becomes the subject of suffering or incon- 
venience that others may be benefited, compels the 
homage of every cognizant heart. 

If we love ourselves overmuch, nobody else will 



The Secret of Popularity, 279 

love us at all. We cannot get the world's esteem 
without paying for it in advance ; and even then our 
sacrifices will avail nothing unless they are made with- 
out reference to the object of gaining popularity. The 
world has an insight into motives which easily detects 
the calculating element in all beneficence and all gener- 
ous doing. It is the native, impulsive, uncalculating 
generosity of a deed that kindles our admiration — the 
doing good without reference to consequences that in- 
spires our love. We demand that a good deed, to be 
the subject of our admiration, shall be the spontaneous 
offspring of an unselfish, chivalrous heart. The mean- 
est man in the world admires magnanimity — the stingi- 
est, uncalculating generosity — although he may feel 
himself incapable of their exercise — just as a man 
physically weak admires a commanding personal prow- 
ess, and a coward a deed of daring. So the tribute to 
generous, unselfish, gallant doing, is universal. 

A thing which is so good and admirable in universal 
human judgment is certainly something which demands 
a careful consideration, especially as in it abides the 
secret of this universally coveted good-will. The world 
declares that selfishness is mean, and unselfishness 
generosity, and magnanimity are noble and admirable. 
This decision cannot be altered, and ought not to be. 
A man whose plans have reference only to himself is a 
contemptible man. We neither love him nor trust 
him. The man who says — " If I sleep, I sleep for my- 



280 Gold- Foil. 

self; if I work, I know not for whom," is a man whom 
all hearts despise — instinctively and inevitably despise. 
It matters not how selfish a man may be, there is some- 
thing in him which tells him that the selfishness he sees 
in others is contemptible. 

I say, then, that the universal judgment "is right upon 
this point, and that it indorses the Christian doctrine 
that selfishness is the central motive power of sin. Now, 
there is not a soul in the world that admires a selfish 
nature. So far, the human mind is unperverted ; and 
no healthy mind can conceive how God can admire such 
a nature. If I, with my low instincts and perverted 
tastes, demand that a man shall be, or become unselfish, 
before I love him, how can I conceive that God will love 
his unchanged character ? I know that He cannot, any 
more than I can, and I am prepared to take His defini- 
tion of the sum and substance of religion as the loving 
of God supremely, and the loving of our neighbor as 
ourselves. Wrapped within this word unselfishness, in 
its full and glorious meaning, lies the central principle 
of Christianity, and from it always unfolds the true 
Christian life. When God sits supremely on the throne 
of a human heart — I say supremely — then selfishness is 
obliterated, and the individual becomes small and in- 
significant in the presence of the great brotherhood. 

I suppose it may be stated as a generally admitted 
truth that mankind are not popular. In other words, 
the race is not held in very high estimation by itself. 



The Secret of Popularity. 281 

If this were not so, David's declaration that all men 
were liars, was not so very hasty after all ; for, if there 
be a habit everywhere and in all times prevalent, it is 
the habit of detraction. Mankind are pretty universally 
unpopular, or universally malignant, for they have a 
very bad reputation among themselves. I think there 
is some cause for all this hard talk about men which 
the most of us indulge in, and that though many un- 
charitable things may be said, the unjust things are not 
so plenty. I think that this selfishness of which we have 
been talking is very common — in fact, that very few of 
us can lay claim to any great degree of freedom from 
it. I think that one great reason why we do not love 
our neighbors better, and why our neighbors do not 
love us better, is that they and we are not altogether 
lovable. I think that the great bar to a quicker and 
higher development of our social life is the contempt we 
feel for one another's selfishness. If all my neighbors 
were free-hearted, generous, magnanimous, unselfish 
men, I should love them all as I may happen to love 
one of them who manifests the possession of these quali- 
ties ; and if I were the possessor of these qualities which 
I most admire in others, I should be sure that all my 
neighbors who know me would love me. 

Christianity, starting in God's fatherhood, bids us love 
our brotherhood. If we love Him, we shall love His 
children, however widely straying and however unamia- 
ble, simply because they are members of the same fam- 



232 Gold-Foil. 

ily with ourselves. We are nowhere commanded to love 
the devil and his angels, because they do not belong to 
our family. But Christianity does not demand that we 
shall admire an unlovely man, and choose him as a com- 
panion, and be happy in his society. It does not de- 
mand that I give him a good name, while I seek to do 
him good, or conspire to hold him popular while I strive 
to make him better. It does not bid me smother my 
antipathies so far as to ignore his selfishness, or to ac- 
cept him as a grateful object of my affections. I can 
love him so far as to wish him well, to labor for his wel- 
fare, and to rejoice in his improvement ; I can love him 
in such a manner as to be grateful for all the good he 
receives and achieves ; but, so long as selfishness is 
dominant in his heart and life, I am not required to de- 
light in him, and I could not if I were. The heart leaps 
to receive a worthy love, and will not be counselled. 

The secret of the world's unloveliness abides in its 
selfishness. This statement, true in the largest sense, is 
equally true in its most limited application. The reason 
why men are not popular with their fellows, is, that their 
fellows fail to find in them generous, uncalculating im- 
pulses — open hearts, free hands, and demonstrative 
good will. I have no doubt that this statement will 
come to many minds either as a new and strange reve- 
lation of truth, or as a proposition which their over- 
weening self-love will compel them to quarrel with. I 
know there are men who are conscious of not being gen- 



The Secret of Popularity. 283 

erally loved, and yet, who, having strong desires to be 
loved, are at a loss to account for their own unpopu- 
larity. If .they accept this doctrine, they can find the 
way to win what they desire. If they reject it, as a 
thing which wounds their self-love and offends them, 
they can have the privilege of being despised while 
they live. God has made selfishness unlovable, and 
shaped the universal human heart to despise it, and 
He has made unselfishness so lovable that we cannot 
withhold from it our admiration. 

Here comes in the power of Christianity as the trans- 
former of character, and the agent of those changes in 
the human heart and life, which make men not only 
lovely to each other, but to God Himself. To my mind, 
there is no stronger evidence of the truth and divine 
authenticity of Christianity, than the direct blow with 
which it hits the nail of human selfishness on the head. 
There is no other system of religion which does this. 
There is no curative scheme of human philosophy which 
even attempts this transformation. No outside plan of 
reformation, even when it has recognized selfishness as 
the root of human evil, has been able to present motives 
of sufficient power to work the necessary regeneration. 
Under the influence of Christianity, I have seen selfish 
men become large-hearted and generous, and have wit- 
nessed the outgoing of their lives into deeds of practi- 
cal good-will. I have never seen this change wrought 
by any other system of religion, nor by any form of hu- 



284 Go Id- Foil. 

man philosophy. All other systems and schemes fail to 
supply the vital principle of a true life and an admira- 
ble character. They are systems and schemes of policy, 
and plans of reward and punishments, built upon what is 
good in humanity. They never contemplate the subver- 
sion of the central principle of selfishness in the heart, 
and the substitution of the principle of benevolence. 

As a student of human nature, and an observer of the 
forces brought to bear upon it, I am compelled to give 
this tribute to Christianity. There is either in it a com- 
bination of powerful motives, rationally to be appre- 
hended and voluntarily to be adopted, or a new princi- 
ple of life, which, infused into the heart, diffuses itself 
through every artery and vein, and changes that life's 
issues. It is not necessary for me to say which I think 
it is. I only say that there has never been found any 
transforming and reforming agency equal to it ; and that 
I believe it is the only reliable agency in the world's 
transformation. It is this which is to make the world 
altogether lovely like its Founder, who gave His whole 
life to us — gave it out of His overflowing love and His 
unselfish nature. As " self-love is a mote in every 
man's eye," there is no man who does not need to ac- 
quire this principle of the Christian life, to make him 
more loving and lovely. The heart given to the Father, 
the hand given to the brother, the life given to both — 
truly this makes a man admirable ! Can we resist lov- 
ing him ? 



The Secret of Popularity. 285 

If the instinctive judgments of men coincide with and 
uphold the Christian standard of loveliness, so do they 
go further, and reveal to us what the character of that 
transformation must be which Christianity works in the 
heart and life. It is not enough that a deed be benefi- 
cent in its results, to secure my homage and admiration. 
I must see that the heart out of which it came was a 
generous heart — that that heart was moved by true 
sympathy and uncalculating benevolence. I must see 
no selfish end consulted, no reluctant bending to a sense 
of obligation, no hard yielding to a conviction of duty. 
It must be spontaneous — an outburst of noble, generous 
life. This, my judgment tells me, is admirable, and 
only this. Now Christianity never works its perfect 
work in the heart until the outgoings of that heart are of 
this character. I am not bound to admire, and I cannot 
admire, a man who, professing to be moved by Christian 
motives, manifests his life by deeds of benevolence that 
start in a sense of Christian duty and Christian obliga- 
tion. The Christian life must be as uncalculating and 
spontaneous as the natural life, before its expression can 
touch my admiration by its quality. 

The true heart is just as unerring in its judgment of 
what constitutes true Christianity as true humanity. Be- 
fore it will yield its tribute of admiration and affection 
to him who does a deed of good, it demands that, in 
either case, there shall be no selfish consideration of any 
kind. It demands that Christianity shall be as sponta- 



286 Gold-Foil. 

neous and chivalrous as humanity, and it knows that 
when it is not, it is not the genuine article. Obligation 
implies the idea of justice. The fulfilment of it is the 
payment of a debt. Duty is a thing rationally appre- 
hended and intellectually measured. Unselfish benevo- 
lence — natural or acquired by the possession of the 
Christian life — blossoms with spontaneous beauty, and 
it is that which we love and which God loves. 

So the secret of being loved is in being lovely, and 
the secret of being lovely is in being unselfish. No man 
liveth to himself, and no man was made to live to him- 
self. He was born with a desire for the good-will of 
others, and with the fact (veiled, perhaps, in many in- 
stances) looking him in the face, that it is impossible to 
get it without the relinquishment of selfishness as the 
ruling motive of his life. The truth is, that the curse of 
selfishness is upon pretty much all our life. It blackens 
and defiles every thing. We have not popular men 
enough to fill decently the offices of the government. 
They are so few that they are not only the subjects of 
envy to many, but of suspicion. The world is so mean 
that, unless it happen to know an unselfish man person- 
ally, it hears of his good deeds only to inquire what and 
how much he expects to make by them. Is not this un- 
popularity of the human race with itself rather humili- 
ating ? Knowing the fact and the reason of it, let us try 
to inaugurate a better condition of things. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE LORD'S BUSINESS. 

"The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the chil- 
dren of light." 

" Business is business." 

il Money is wise ; it knows its own way." 

1 SUPPOSE my minister — the Rev. Theodore Dunn 
— to be one of the very best in New England. If 
there is anything that I object to in him, it is his un- 
comfortable faithfulness. But I have always taken his 
pointed discourses and his still more pointed personal 
exhortations in good part, as I know him to be the best 
friend I have, and an honest and thoroughly enthusiastic 
worker in his holy calling. A few weeks ago I received 
a note from him, requesting me to call at his study for 
private conversation upon an important topic. I was 
promptly at his door at the time appointed, and spent a 
very pleasant evening with him. The special subject 
upon his mind was the importance of conducting all 
business enterprises upon Christian principles. I think 
he must have heard something of my connection with a 



288 Gold-Foil. 

fancy scheme which it is not necessary for me to men- 
tion here ; but he had good breeding, and said nothing 
about it. I could do nothing, of course, but accede to 
his excellent propositions, and bow to his exhortations. 
I may say, before going further, that he was entirely in 
the right, and that I hope his lesson has done me good. 

After returning home, I thought the matter over. 
This was the seventh time he had sent for me, for the 
purpose of lecturing me. I had had some thoughts on 
the subject of religion which I had never expressed to 
him, and said to myself, " I will turn the tables ; I will 
send for the minister." I gave no time for second 
thoughts, and dispatched a note on the instant, re- 
questing him to call at my office " for private conversa- 
tion on the subject of religion," on the following even- 
ing. I was in my office at the time appointed, and my 
minister came in sight as the clock struck seven. He 
greeted me cordially, but was evidently a little puzzled. 
He took the seat proffered him, threw open his over- 
coat, and in certain commonplace inquiries, indicated 
his wish that I should commence the conversation. I 
felt a little awkwardly in the position into which I had 
voluntarily thrown myself; but, determined to make 
the best of it, I assumed the censor and adviser, and 
opened. 

" Mr. Dunn," said I, " you invited me to your house 
to talk to me, in your sacred capacity, of the importance 
of conducting business enterprises on Christian princi- 



The Lord's Business. 289 

pies. I have invited you here to-night to talk to you on 
the importance of conducting the Christian enterprise 
on business principles. " 

Mr. Dunn smiled good-naturedly, and bade me pro- 
ceed. 

" Well, sir," said I, " I am a business man, and have 
had, in a somewhat active life, considerable knowledge 
of great enterprises ; but I consider the Christian en- 
terprise as the largest operation ever undertaken by 
human hands. It contemplates nothing* less than the 
peaceful subjugation of a rebellious world to the for- 
saken rule of heaven — the restoration of a degenerate 
race to purity and happiness." 

" But it is not man's enterprise," said Mr. Dunn. \ 
" Hear me through, sir. Moral forces, of varied na- 
ture and operation, and supernatural influences, as the 
most of us believe, enter into the prosecution of this en- 
terprise ; but beyond these I recognize an element of 
business — an element inherent in every thing which can 
legitimately be called an enterprise. An enterprise in 
any sense is a business enterprise in some sense, be- 
cause it involves management and machinery. Chris- 
tianity has its parish, its society, its officers and organ- 
izations of various sorts, its missionary associations, and 
its educational institutions. Is it not so ? " 
Mr. Dunn simply bowed, and said, " Go on." 
u To the management of the business department of 
the Christian enterprise are called such men as have the 
13 



290 Gold-Foil. 

most practical business tact — men who add to general 
intelligence, social position, piety, and zeal, that ac- 
quaintance with the men of the world, and that famili- 
arity with the forms, details, and maxims of the world's 
business, which will enable them prudently and effi- 
ciently to perform their duties. This is a thing of men 
and money, and when money is short, and men are 
scarce, you will admit that management becomes a 
thing of great importance." 

I saw that my visitor was becoming interested. He 
laid off his overcoat entirely, and drew his chair nearer 
to me. 

" Now," said I, resuming, "we must settle, at start- 
ing, exactly what the Christian enterprise is. Is it 
building up our church ? " 

" O no ! " replied Mr. Dunn, " certainly not." 

" Is it building up our sect ? " 

" Not by any means." 

"Well, suppose you tell me, in a few words, what it 
is," I suggested, for the purpose of leaving the burden 
with him, and getting my premises. 

"I should say," replied my minister, "to be con- 
cise, that the Christian enterprise is the enterprise of 
converting the world to Christ." 

"A good answer," I responded. "I accept your 
definition, for it is my own ; and I knew you could give 
no other. Now, I am not going into theology at all. 
It is enough for me to know that eighteen hundred 



The Lord's Business. 291 

years ago, a remarkable personage appeared, who was 
allied alike or in a degree to divinity and humanity, 
and who declared himself to be the Saviour of the 
human race. I will not differ with you, or with any- 
body else, as to how his salvation was to be conferred. 
I know that he possessed a supernal elevation of charac- 
ter, that he lived a spotless life, that he gave utterance 
to the noblest precepts and principles, that he was cruci- 
fied by cruel men, and that he rose again. His great 
mission was that of the bearer of God's good-will to all 
mankind. The commission which he gave to his disci- 
ples was, ' Go ye into all the world and preach the 
Gospel to every creature.' He began the enterprise, and 
intrusted its completion to the hands of his disciples. 
This is the enterprise which they have undertaken ; the 
enterprise which you, Mr. Dunn, have defined. As I 
look at it, it is a grand, overruling, all-subordinating 
scheme. If its merits are equal to its pretensions, 
there is not, under the whole heaven, any great work 
which should not be subordinate to this." 

I had grown a little warm with my talk, and my 
minister smiled in his own pleasant way, and remarked 
that he thought I had mistaken my profession. I bade 
him wait until the conclusion before committing him- 
self on that point. I then resumed. 

" In examining the operations of the propagators of 
Christianity, I find that money stands as the basis of 
nearly all of them. Money builds the church, hires the 



292 Gold- Foil. 

minister, sends the missionary, prints the Bible, drops 
the tract, supports the colporteur, and furnishes the 
life-blood of all the Christian charities. Without money 
comparatively nothing can be done, and co-ordinately 
essential are men ; for without ministers, and mission- 
aries, and colporteurs, and printers, money, devoted to 
this enterprise, would be fruitless. The question is, 
therefore, as to how this money and these men are 
used ? Can you think of an instance, Mr. Dunn, in 
which money has been misused ? " 

" I was just thinking," he replied, e * of the little town 
of Montford, up here, which has four church edifices 
and not a single minister." 

"Yes," said I, "and there is Plum Orchard, just 
beyond Montford, which contains three ambitious- 
looking church edifices with a poor minister in each — 
very poor, I may say, in more than one sense. In 
Montford, sectarian zeal has actually exhausted all of 
the available means of Christian effort, and, so far as I 
can learn, the town has not for years been the scene of 
the slightest Christian progress. There are four flocks 
there without a shepherd. Plum Orchard contains 
twelve hundred inhabitants. Half of these do not at- 
tend church at all, partly because they have become 
disgusted with the sectarian strifes that have prevailed 
among the churches, but mostly because the preachers 
(poor men !) have no power over them. Of the re- 
maining half, a moiety attend church in a thriving 



The Lord's Business. 293 

manufacturing village two miles distant, and three 
hundred are left to fight out the bootless battle, which 
keeps three inefficient leaders in commission, and does 
good to no one. Only the first case is an extreme one. 
Similar cases are found everywhere. Now, Mr. Dunn, 
do you blame an unbelieving business world for laugh- 
ing and scoffing at a spectacle like this ? " 

" Very bad, very bad ! " sighed my minister with a 
sad face and a shake of the head. 

" Now, sir," I resumed, " I am not going to say that 
this is not right, for I pretend to hold nothing deeper 
than a business view of it. I am not going to say that 
it is not just as the Head of the church would have it ; 
but I must say, very decidedly, that, viewed in its 
business aspect, it is the most foolish, the most inexcu- 
sable, the most preposterous profligacy. The whole 
world cannot illustrate such another instance of the 
squandering of precious means by organized bands of 
sane business men. I say this in view of the fact which, 
in courtesy, I am bound to admit, that it is all done 
conscientiously, and for the simple purpose of pushing 
forward, in the most efficient manner, the Christian 
enterprise. " 

" We must have charity, sir," said Mr. Dunn, in a 
wounded tone. 

" Charity ! " I responded, somewhat warmly, for I 
saw that he had not fully comprehended my meaning ; 
" what has charity to do with it ? I have impugned no 



294 Gold-Foil, 

man's motives. I am simply criticising a business ope- 
ration. Let me illustrate. Suppose that I have a 
business which extends throughout this State. I have 
an article to dispose of which should be in the hands of 
every man within its limits. I cannot visit every town 
and every man myself; therefore I must avail myself 
of a system of offices and agencies. Proper agents 
being scarce, it becomes necessary for me to economize. 
What, therefore, shall be my policy? Evidently so to 
apportion my offices and agents as to bring the com- 
modity I have to dispose of within the reach of all, if 
possible — of the largest possible number, at least. I 
hold my agents strictly responsible to me for the man- 
ner in which they do my work. I require of them all 
to hold up their hands and swear to do it faithfully and 
well ; not striving for precedence or monopoly, not 
seeking their own aggrandizement, but laboring di- 
rectly to forward my interests and advance my enter- 
prise. This is a plain business operation ; and, strip- 
ping the Christian enterprise of every thing foreign to 
its business element, I place it by the side of that enter- 
prise as a just standard by which to judge it. Jesus 
Christ has something to dispose of to every individual 
of the human race. In order to bring it to the knowl- 
edge of every individual, he has established a system of 
offices and agencies, and committed the work of ex- 
tending them over the world to his people. He re- 
quires of every agent that he shall devote himself, with 



The Lord's Business. 295 

a single purpose, to the forwarding of his great enter- 
prise — the conversion of the world. But his agencies, 
after the lapse of more than eighteen hundred years, 
have been established only upon a small portion of the 
territory, and difficulties seem to clog the path of their 
further progress. We find his followers, all of whom 
profess a supreme wish to forward his enterprise, dis- 
agreeing upon some of the minor and non-essential de- 
tails of the business, dividing themselves, and using up 
the money which he has committed to them in building 
a multitude of splendid and often rival offices, and re- 
taining in each an agent, while a large portion of the 
field is entirely unprovided for. Shut up within the 
walls of a small partisanship, they seem to have lost 
sight of the great enterprise to which they have com- 
mitted themselves ; or if they sometimes think of it, it 
is with a piteous lamentation over the hindrance of a 
cause in the way of which they have placed every pos- 
sible business obstruction." 

" We must have charity," reiterated Mr. Dunn, 
moving uneasily in his chair. 

" Now, my good sir," I rejoined, as you are de- 
termined to make me a censor of motives, rather than 
a critic of policy, I will not have the name without the 
game — you know the old saying. So when I say that 
the business part of the Christian enterprise is badly 
managed, I .will say that, if a business of mine were 
managed thus, I should come to the conclusion that 



296 Gold-Foil. 

my agents care more for themselves than they do for 
my business." 

a I saw where you were coming," replied Mr. Dunn, 
with his kind smile, for he was determined to make a 
sort of enemy of me before he could be complacent. 

" Well, sir, you brought me here," I replied. " Now 
let me go on. It is a confessed and patent fact that 
money is short and men are scarce. The call is uttered 
and echoed in every quarter of the world for more 
money and more men ; but is it too much to say that 
enough of both have been squandered in the business 
management of the Christian enterprise to have carried 
Christianity into every household ? The money ex- 
pended in church edifices, and inefficient governmental 
church establishments, and bootless and worse than 
bootless controversies, and the upbuilding of rival 
sects, would have crowned every hill upon God's foot- 
stool with a church edifice, and placed a Bible in every 
human hand. Further than this : if the men now com- 
missioned to preach the gospel were properly ap- 
portioned to the world's population, millions would 
enjoy their ministrations who never heard the name 
of Jesus Christ pronounced, and never will. The 
towns in Christendom which feebly support, or 
thoroughly starve, two, three, or four ministers, when 
one is entirely adequate for them, are almost number- 
less." 

" Yes," said Mr. Dunn, f I believe that statement 



The Lords Business. 297 

is true. I suppose I could preach to this whole town 
in which we live, as well as to my limited congrega- 
tion." 

" Precisely, Mr. Dunn. Now do you suppose the 
business world around us here can look on and see 
how we manage, and not see the thriftlessness and in- 
consistency of the whole thing ? And if this business 
world should happen to conclude that men who pro- 
fess what we do, and manage as we do, are not in 
earnest, would it compromise its reason and its com- 
mon sense by it ? " 

"But I thought you to be a lover of art, and always 
glad to see fine church architecture, " responded Mr. 
Dunn, endeavoring to shift the burden. 

" You are entirely correct — I wish the world were 
full of it ; but I am talking now as a business man. I 
understand that a church is built with a supreme desire 
for the service of Christianity — as something which is 
to tell directly upon the Christian enterprise. It is a 
simple question of dollars and cents. Do one hundred 
thousand dollars, expended upon a church edifice, half 
of which is devoted simply to ornamental art, exert 
over fifty thousand dollars in power toward the con- 
version of the world ? — for we must always come back 
to this definition of the great enterprise. This is what 
churches are built for, as I understand it; and I ask 
whether, in this case, fifty thousand dollars are not ab- 
solutely lost to the Christian enterprise ? Is there not 
13* 



298 Gold-Foil. 

within the bounds of Christendom enough of bricks, 
and mortar, and mouldy marble, and costly spires, and 
flaming oriels, and gorgeous drapery, and luxurious 
upholstery, and chiming bells, and deftly-chiselled 
stone, all dedicated nominally to the service of Heaven, 
to enrich the whole world with Christian light, were it 
economically dispensed ? " 

" There is undoubtedly something in what you have 
said," replied my minister, " but I think not so much as 
you claim. And now, as you 'are so apt at tearing down, 
suppose you try your hand at building up." 

"I do not see that this is needful, for the remedy is 
indicated by the disease ; but if you wish it, I will do it 
willingly. As a business man, it will be impossible for 
me to judge of the relative importance of maintaining a 
certain truth or tenet, acknowledged to be non-essential, 
and the saving of a human soul. That is for you to do. 
I only take the enterprise in gross ; and I say to you, as 
one of the managers of the Christian enterprise, that if 
you are supremely devoted to that enterprise, if the 
great and only end you seek be the salvation of the 
world, then you will spend your money and apportion 
your means in such a way that the enterprise shall feel 
their whole power. Here, for instance, in this town, we 
have four religious societies. These happen to be Epis- 
copal, Congregational, Methodist, and Baptist. All 
these people expect to meet each other in heaven. They 
call themselves ' Evangelical Christians/ thus acknowl- 



The Lord's Business. 299 

edging that non-essential differences of belief keep them 
from thorough fraternization. These men are made a 
common Christian brotherhood by the common recep- 
tion of what they deem the essential truths of Christian- 
ity. One large church and one good pastor, like you, 
Mr. Dunn, would be sufficient for all these sects. Now, 
as they can agree upon the essential truths of Christian- 
ity, why may they not do so formally, and leave to every 
man that Christian liberty of opinion upon the non- 
essentials which belongs to him, and which by right of 
public charter or private choice he will exercise under 
all circumstances. From my knowledge of human na- 
ture I might go further, and say that such an exhibition 
of united devotion to a great cause as this would be, and 
such a demonstration as it would furnish of the real, 
fraternal spirit of Christianity, would accomplish more 
for the Christian enterprise than the separate labors of 
the four sects could hope to accomplish in a quarter of 
a century." 

" My dear sir," said my minister, warmly, and with 
tears brimming his eyes, "this is a beautiful dream of 
yours. I say it from my heart, I would gladly see it 
realized ; but there are so many prejudices to overcome 
— there are such different modes of thought and worship 
— I do not see how we could come harmoniously to- 
gether." 

" Ah ! but, Mr. Dunn, I have only spoken on the sup- 
position that all prejudices had been subordinated — all 



300 Gold-Foil. 

partisan feelings and non-essential opinions — to the 
Christian enterprise. I have only suggested such a 
management of the Lord's business as I should insist 
upon if it were mine ; and I repeat what I have said, in 
effect, before, that if, in the enterprise, which I had sup- 
posed my own, I should find three or four offices in op- 
position to each other, in any form, carried on by as 
many agents, each claiming the preference, with no es- 
sential reason for difference, I should conclude that they 
cared more for themselves and their opinions than they 
did for my business. In the method of reform which I 
have suggested, I would liberate and render available a 
vast amount of idle capital, and I should find upon my 
hands a large corps of agents to be sent into such por- 
tions of the field as might be unsupplied. I would also 
divert the large annual outlay which it has cost to sup- 
port these superfluous institutions into the maintenance 
of the new efforts incident to their transplantation. " 

" This looks rational, however impracticable it may 
be," responded Mr. Dunn, half doubtfully. "But is 
this your whole plan ? " 

" Hardly the shell of it, Mr. Dunn. Are you weary ? " 

" Bless you, no ! " replied my minister, pressing my 
hand. " I was only going to remark, that there would 
still be men wanting." 

" Very well," I replied. "I thank you for leading 
me to this point. Every year the religious press breathes 
out the stereotyped lamentation that only a few young 



The Lord's Business. 301 

men, comparatively with the wants of the world, are 
graduated at the theological seminaries. While young 
men by tens of thousands throng every avenue of trade, 
and press into every alley that leads to an avenue, and 
while the professions of law and medicine are crowded 
with the ambitious and the talented, few adopt the no- 
blest calling of all, and the Christian enterprise lags for 
lack of public laborers. Now I have yet to see the first 
branch of business in this qountry, or in any country, 
that cannot command as many men as it will pay for. 
I tell you that for money I can obtain men for any ser- 
vice under heaven — any service that I would engage in 
— good, Christian men, too. Money will send men into 
the eternal ice of the poles, under the fires of the equa- 
tor, across snow-crowned mountains, and among savage 
beasts and savage men. What, by the way, is the 
amount of your salary, Mr. Dunn? " 

" Eight hundred dollars a year." 

" That is more than any other minister in this town 
enjoys, and it is just half the sum I pay my head-clerk. 
Now, be kind enough to tell me what is expected of a 
minister." 

I had touched the right chord, and my minister rose 
to his feet, and gave it to me, " with an unction." 

" It is required of a minister," said he, " that he shall 
possess a first-class mind ; that he shall spend ten of the 
best years of his life in that crucifixion of the flesh which 
efficient study necessitates ; that, if poor, he shall carry 



302 Gold-Foil. 

into his field of labor a load of debt which will gall his 
shoulders for years ; that he shall withhold himself from 
all other callings and all side schemes and sources of 
profit ; that he shall write from two to three sermons 
each week, and preach them ; that between Sabbath 
and Sabbath he shall attend two or three evening meet- 
ings ; that he shall visit every family in his parish once 
in six months ; that he shall take the laboring oar in all 
public charities ; that he sfyall call upon the sick, and 
look after strangers, and officiate at funerals, and serve 
as a member of the school committee, and deliver one 
or two lectures before the village lyceum every season, 
and visit the sewing-circle, through the winter — and — " 

" And all," I continued, rising also to my feet, for a 
sense of injustice was getting the better of me, " and all 
for a sum at which a modern railroad conductor would 
snap his fingers in contempt." 

But Mr. Dunn was at home in this matter, and I was 
very glad to let him talk for me. 

" I will not amend your conclusion of my sentence," 
said my minister, smiling, " though it is not exactly in 
my style. I will say, however, that a minister's salary 
is usually adjusted to the lowest current cost of living. 
In this way, he is allowed to lay up nothing for paying 
off his debts, furnishing his house, stocking and replen- 
ishing his library, educating his children, and surround- 
ing himself with the convenient and graceful externals 
of cultivated life. The pastor, enfeebled as he is by 



The Lord's Business. 303 

care and the preparatory studies through which he has 
passed, is required to be the hardest drudge in his 
parish. He is accepted as a laborer in the most im- 
portant calling that honors our poor humanity, he is 
loaded with responsibilities which call for more than 
human strength for their support, yet his scanty stipend 
is doled out to him more as if he were a dirty beggar, 
than a messenger from heaven, and the almoner of its 
choicest gifts." 

Thus having honestly poured out his heart and his 
convictions, my minister sat down. I resumed my seat 
also, and, as I did so, I said, " Mr. Dunn, is it to be 
wondered at that so few men can be found who are wil- 
ling to enter upon a life like this ? " 

"But, my dear sir, there are higher considerations," 
said he, hastily recalling himself. "I declare it to be 
the highest evidence I have known of the benignly con- 
straining power of Christianity, that so many men can 
be found who are willing to leave the brilliant paths — 
open to all — of honor, wealth, and fame — to leave them 
with the dew of youth upon their brows, and their hearts 
bounding with the strong pulses of young manhood, and 
take this dusty road, parched with penury, thick strewn 
with the thorns of ingratitude, and thronged with hu- 
miliations, from the valley where it diverges from the 
world's great track, to the heaven touched hill, where 
the weary feet strike upon the grateful, golden pave- 
ment." 



304 Gold-Foil. 

"You are right, entirely right," I responded, "and 
now I wish to say to you that I consider the Church, in 
its business capacity, an unjust and grinding master 
towards those whom it has called into its service. Its 
noble colporteurs are not paid as well as hod-carriers, 
and you have told me feelingly how well its pastors are 
paid. And I say that, in a business point of view, the 
lamentation over the small supply of pastors in prepara- 
tion is childish and contemptible, so long as the com- 
monest business principles ~are disregarded in the en- 
deavor to secure a larger supply. You speak of higher 
considerations. I grant that there are such considera- 
tions, for I have evidence of them in the fact that there 
are any ministers at all. But what have a church and 
religious society to do with those considerations in hir- 
ing a minister? If they find their candidate an edu- 
cated, sound, spirited, honest, and devoted man, they 
accept him, and enter into a business relation with him. 
They are a laboring, producing, trading congregation, 
with all the avenues of wealth open to them. They 
have no right to ask him to give them one cent. In the 
salary they give him, it is their duty to yield him a full 
share in their prosperity. Anything less than this makes 
him a menial, and does him injustice. Now it may be 
that ministers do not care about money, but I have no- 
ticed that our few well-paid pulpits never go begging 
for ministers. They are all undoubtedly exercised by 
other considerations, but as the Christian enterprise is 



The Lord's Business. 305 

a common one, the Church has no more right to require 
them to devote to it their life for higher considerations 
than money, than they have to demand money for 
higher considerations than their services. It is an even 
thing." 

" I recognize the intrinsic justice of your position, " 
responded my minister, after a pause, " but I am afraid 
money enough could not be found to conduct the 
Christian enterprise in this manner." 

" But money enough is found to manage it badly," 
I replied, " and I believe there is money enough to 
manage it well. I have yet to find the first worldly en- 
terprise that promised safety for investments that did 
not command all the money necessary for its consum- 
mation. Wherever the angels of promise and progress 
lead, money follows and does their bidding. It builds 
magnificent cities, and bridges rivers, and excavates 
canals, and constructs railroads, and levels mountains, 
and equips navies, and furnishes countless hosts with 
the enginery of war. In its ready and prolific power, 
it often furnishes facilities for business before business 
demands them. The Christian world is flooded with 
wealth. There is money enough and to spare, and I 
very decidedly declare, that if, in the subordinate en- 
terprises of Christian life, there is no lack of money 
there can be none in the Christian enterprise itself, 
provided, of course, that Christians are sincere in their 
expressions of supreme devotion to that enterprise." 



306 Gold-Foil. 

" A new test of piety," interpolated my minister. 

"Perhaps so, but I cannot help it; because, as a 
business man, I know perfectly well that any enterprise 
in which large bodies of men feel a great and absorbing 
interest, can command all the money which it requires. 
And now, when the business world sees the Christian 
world begging for money with which to forward its 
great enterprise, and counting its receipts by slowly ac- 
cumulating thousands, what must be the impression of 
that business world in regard to the honesty and ear- 
nestness of that Christian world ? Can it resist the 
quick conclusions of its acutely educated judgment? 
When it sees a body of men lauding a scheme or enter- 
prise in which they will make no deeper investment 
than they feel obliged to make for decency's sake, it 
calls it contemptuously ' a bogus scheme.' " 

" You have a grain of truth in a bundle of sophis- 
try, here," replied Mr. Dunn. " It is true, and it is 
not true. The comparison which you institute between 
investments in human enterprises and the Christian en- 
terprise is an illegitimate one." 

"I see where the trouble is," I rejoined. "The 
result of the comparison is the wholesale conviction of 
the Church of the sin of hypocrisy ; but I will relieve 
that of its point by the charitable admission that these 
men are laboring under a hallucination. I believe they 
have entire consciousness of sincerity. Still, from my 
point of view, I can only decide as I have decided. As 



The Lord's Business. 307 

a business man, I know that the Christian world can 
command any amount of money it may be desirable to 
command for the prosecution of the Christian enter- 
prise ; and I can only conclude that, if it fail to do it, it 
is becauseit has little confidence or little interest in it." 

" But do you comprehend the severity of this judg- 
ment ? " inquired Mr. Dunn, solemnly. 

" I do, sir, but I am not responsible for it. I cannot 
help it. You come to business men for money. Why 
should we help you to a penny, when you will not in- 
vest in your schemes yourselves ? You remember how 
it was when our bank was chartered. We opened the 
subscription-books, and the stock was all taken in two 
hours. We believed in our own scheme ; but you pro- 
fess to regard religion as something better than money ; 
you even admit that pastors should labor for higher 
considerations than money ; and yet, when a subscrip- 
tion-book is opened for the advancement of some special 
interest of the Christian enterprise, Christians almost 
universally play shy of it, and oblige it to go painfully 
and pitifully begging for months." 

As I concluded, my minister heaved a deep sigh. I 
feared he was becoming tired of the interview, and ex- 
pressed the fear to him. He begged me to go on, how- 
ever, and declared that his interest in my conversation 
had deepened from the first, although he felt sick and 
sad with the reflections awakened in the latter part of 
the discussion. 



308 Gold-Foil. 

" We will leave the home field, then," I resumed, 
" and change the current. I find that, independent of 
carrying on the Christian enterprise within Christen- 
dom, there is a missionary work — a work of aggression 
upon the domains of heathenism. In this work the 
business department assumes an importance which it 
holds in no other section of the scheme of Christian 
propagandism. The organizations are larger and more 
powerful, heavier amounts of money are intrusted to 
them, and a more complicated system of machinery is 
called into operation. Their operations are two-fold, 
comprising acquisition and diffusion, and rendering 
necessary a double set of machinery — one to collect 
funds, and another to disburse and consume them. 
These organizations cannot be sustained without a con- 
siderable outlay of money, and the amount of money 
contributed for direct use in forwarding the Christian 
enterprise must be reduced by the amount necessary for 
carrying on the machinery of these organizations. This, 
in itself, is right, as every branch of business should be 
made to pay for itself. I find, on examining this mis- 
sionary field, that it is occupied by a large number of 
organizations, all professedly laboring for the same 
object." 

" A blessed object it is, and may they all be pros- 
pered in it ! " interrupted my minister. 

" Amen ! say I ; and I will say more than this. From 
the nature of the case, the grand end of Christian effort 



The Lords Business. 309 

is kept more prominently in view in missionary opera- 
tions than in any other. Selfishness and partizanship 
are more thoroughly subordinated. The work is one of 
measurably pure Christian benevolence. Not so much 
anxiety is felt for the propagation of sectarian views as 
in the home department of Christian labor. Accord- 
ingly, in some instances, we have a union of various or- 
ganizations for the purpose of saving the expense of 
operating multiplied sets of machinery." 

" You like this, I suppose," said Mr. Dunn. 

" Entirely ; and simply because it is the business way 
of doing things. You remember that a short time ago a 
traveller, in passing over the New York Central Rail- 
road, from Albany to Buffalo, was obliged to purchase a 
long string of tickets, which represented six or seven — 
more or less — railroad corporations. Each had its 
board of officers, its independent set of machinery, its 
separate engines, cars and men. The business of these 
lines was to help the passenger on from Albany to Buf- 
falo. Their interest was identical. So business men 
became aware that there was a great waste in the man- 
agement. They therefore agreed to a grand scheme of 
consolidation, by which the whole track should come 
into the ownership of one corporation, and be placed 
under one board of management. This was the work of 
business men. Now these missionary corporations are 
the managers of roads that lead from earth to heaven ; 
and, unlike the old railroad corporations, they keep up 



310 Gold- Foil. 

(to speak it reverently) entire routes of transit from one 
extreme to the other. In this thing, all Christians feel 
that it is of more importance that a heathen should come 
to a practical knowledge of the Christian life, than that 
that life should be accompanied by any special sectarian 
views. What I wish to say, as a business man, is, that 
not a cent of money should be wasted in superfluous or- 
ganizations and machinery, and that all these men who 
are carrying on this superfluous machinery should be put 
directly into the aggressive field of operations, where 
men are so much wanted." 

" I agree with you in the main, my friend," said Mr. 
Dunn, drawing a long breath. 

" Yet I only advise in the home field the policy which 
you approve in the foreign." 

" I know," replied my minister, "but you do not 
comprehend all the difficulties." 

" Who made the difficulties ? " 

" Let us not go back to that," said Mr. Dunn smiling. 

" Very well, I will go on. We have, scattered here 
and there, over the land, petty societies, established for 
the accomplishment of some minor, special ends. 
There are some of these which must use nearly or quite 
all the funds they receive in sustaining themselves. 
Their agents occupy our pulpits, they haunt our houses ; 
and as we do not know them, or the organizations which 
they represent, we regard it as a hardship to bestow our 
charities upon them. Speaking in a business way, a hat 



The Lord's Bttsiness. 311 

is a hat, and a human soul is a human soul, wherever 
found. If I have money to give for the benefit of a hu- 
man soul, I choose to give it where it will tell directly 
upon that soul, and not to a man who will keep half of 
the sum to pay himself for getting it out of me. In other 
words, I would support that man as a missionary, and 
thus give the heathen the benefit of his time and my 
money, rather than deprive the heathen entirely of the 
one and half of the other. " 

" Then you would kill all these societies, would 
you? " 

" I would do this : I would place the best business 
men at the head of our leading charities, and then, if 
they should fail to find these minor fields of sufficient 
promise to warrant an outlay in their behalf, I should 
advise that they remain uncultivated. " 

" But I do not see," said my minister, "how you will 
avoid the necessity of keeping up a full corps of collec- 
tors. Every church must be approached with explana- 
tions and solicitations." 

" Yes, but not necessarily by professional collectors. 
If Christians really feel the interest which they profess 
to feel in missionary operations, they will need no ex- 
planations — no annual posting up in missionary matters. 
A business man needs no such annual posting up in 
financial affairs. He reads the foreign news, the price- 
current, the daily condition of the money-market, and 
every thing which directly or indirectly bears upon his 



312 Gold- Foil. 

business. The Christian world has its c Missionary 
Herald/ and other publications, in which all the facts 
are stated weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Any man 
really interested in this enterprise, as every Christian 
professes to be, would of course read these publications 
with anxious avidity. The pastor does, at least ; and I 
should greatly prefer, Mr. Dunn, to hear a missionary 
sermon from you, than to listen to the tedious harangue 
of a stranger. At any rate, if the church is really in- 
terested in the missionary work, it will gladly assume the 
task of collecting its own funds, and thus turn into the 
direct channel of Christian effort the money now expend- 
ed in supporting collectors, and, with it, the collectors 
themselves." 

Here Mr. Dunn took out his watch. 

" Mr. Dunn, I accept the hint. I have bored you." 

" Not at all, sir," replied the good-natured man. " I 
assure you that the act was involuntary. Go on." 

"I think," said I, resuming, " that there are but two 
more points which I care about touching to-night. We 
business men think a great deal of business honor. In 
the business world, a man who refuses to pay his just 
debts is accounted no better than a swindler. All con- 
fidence is withdrawn from him, and all business accom- 
modations are refused to him wherever he is known. It 
was only last Sabbath that you gave out a hymn which 
had in it this noble stanza : — 



The Lord's Business. 313 

* Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were an offering far too small.; 
Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all.' 

I noticed several eyes around me grow moist with its 
effect. I have no doubt that the whole church looked 
upon it as an eloquent expression of their indebtedness 
to their great Master. They mentally credited Heaven 
with an infinite benefit, and debited themselves with 
their entire spiritual, vital, and worldly estate. Now, I 
as a business man, see that the Christian acknowledges 
the receipt of this benefit, and in his covenant, or con- 
tract, agrees to make the utmost payment in his power. 
Mr. Dunn, you know I mean no irreverence when I say 
that the church has not treated Jesus Christ with any- 
thing like the business punctilio which it exercises to- 
wards and exacts of its neighbors, and that, if Jesus 
Christ were the manager of a bank, every obligation the 
members have given would have passed to protest long 
ago. I do not pretend to canvas moral obligations, and 
I will only add, that when the Christian enterprise shall 
receive all the men and all the money pledged to it by 
contract, when Christians shall discharge their plain 
business obligations, voluntarily assumed, and long over- 
due, there will be no lack of agents or of means for 
carrying the Christian enterprise to the grand consum- 
mation which awaits it." 

"This is a new view," said my minister, with enthu- 
14 



3 H Gold- Foil. 

siasm, " and should be urged from the pulpit. It must 
be effective." 

" You are welcome to it," I replied. 

" And is my lesson concluded ? " 

11 Not quite. I wish to add that business men, in 
their steady look-out for the main chance, are always on 
the alert for any incidental or side schemes of profit or 
advantage that may present themselves. In the Chris- 
tian enterprise, or among its results, there is such a 
thing recognized as Christian brotherhood. It ought to 
be the best and purest relation which can exist between 
man and man, and, if fully realized, certain material 
benefits would be sure to result from it." 

" What, for instance ? " 

" Well, you know that, for the purpose of securing 
benefits that would naturally flow from a genuine 
Christian brotherhood, various special organizations 
have been established, such as the Free Masons and 
the Odd Fellows. Suppose I were in New Orleans, or 
London, and should fall sick. Suppose, also, that I 
were a member of your church, and also a Mason. 
Should I call upon a member of the church first, in 
order to secure care and aid ? " 

My minister blushed, and did not reply. 

" You know I should not. Now I say that there 
is a very large class of minds which judge of the sound- 
ness of a principle by the character of the action it 
inspires. To such a class as this, which organization — 



The Lord's Business. 315 

the church or the lodge — would seem to possess within 
it the most powerful principle of practical fraternity ? " 

," But, my dear sir," said Mr. Dunn, warmly, " these 
societies have nothing good in them that they did not 
take from Christianity." 

"That is it exactly. They have stolen your capi- 
tal. As a business man, I say that Christianity cannot 
afford to render necessary or desirable a set of organ- 
izations which tend to throw it into disrepute, by doing 
the work which it is the duty of the church to do. 
Were I to undertake a large business, and attempt to 
manage it in all its details, and so far fail in one of them 
that another should spring up, and take it out of my 
hands, and execute it better than I had ever executed 
it, I should not only feel personally humiliated, but I 
should feel that my whole business had been wounded. 
I say, then, that the prosecutors of the Christian enter- 
prise cannot afford to be surpassed by any other organ- 
ization in the practical results which flow from the 
brotherhood it establishes. And now,'if you will allow 
me to finish at a breath, I will add that this same 
business view of brotherhoods applies with equal force 
to all the organizations formed to do the work which 
the church neglects to do. Various societies of re- 
form that have sprung up in the past have found their 
birth in the quick sensibilities of men who have had no 
connection with the church, and who, in carrying them 
forward, have met with so much immobility in, or abso- 



3 16 Gold- Foil. 

lute opposition from, the church, that they have be- 
come impatient and disgusted, so far, in some instances, 
as to become open enemies of the church, and even of 
the Bible itself. I say that the Christian enterprise 
cannot afford this. Every good principle or purpose 
which is involved in these side-schemes is taken from 
Christianity ; but Christianity, while furnishing capital 
for these schemes, loses not only the capital, but the 
credit of using it, and often has the misfortune to see 
its thankless beneficiaries turning against it. I say 
such management as this is ruinous." 

" Management, management, management ! " ex- 
claimed Mr. Dunn, rising to his feet, and taking his hat 
from the table — " nothing but management." 

" My good sir, what do you mean ? " 

"I mean this, that your constant association of 
management with the Christian enterprise is repugnant 
to my ideas of the nature of that enterprise. The 
Christian enterprise is heaven-born. It has inherent, 
irresistible strength, and God is with it ! It must win 
its way, if its facts and its principles be proclaimed ; 
and because that in it are the wisdom and the power of 
God, it does not need the aid of such small manage- 
ment as we apply to our business affairs — still less the 
aid of that power which the cunning tactician employs 
in other and less worthy fields of operation." 

" I honor the sensitiveness and sensibility in which 
your words originate," I replied ; " but I join issue with 



The Lord's Business. 317 

you. There is nothing more dangerous to any enter- 
prise than an overweening confidence in its strength. 
Now, my good sir, against a good cause, interest, lust, 
and malice manage, and when they crush it, as they 
have crushed many good causes, they crush it by man- 
agement. They cannot oppose it on its own merits, 
and they therefore avoid its issues. But all the power 
which a good cause possesses within itself resides in its 
issues. If its opponents be not brought to meet these, 
it is powerless. Here is where management becomes 
necessary to meet management, and the nature of the 
cause and the nature of the opposition will determine 
the nature of the management." 

" But this has nothing to do with business — we were 
talking of business management." 

" I am coming to that. The strictly business man- 
agement stands upon a different basis. No matter how 
good or how strong a cause may be, the scheme of its 
propagation necessarily has its business department, 
which, being independent of the cause itself, in the fact 
that it is incident to all organized human action, must 
be conducted on business principles. I therefore say 
that there is nothing more dangerous to a cause than 
that degree of confidence in its strength which makes 
it responsible for more power than resides in its issues, 
and leads to the abandonment of departments of labor 
essential to its success — departments only legitimately to 
be operated by human sagacity and human prudence." 



318 Gold- Foil. 

As I closed my last sentence, the clock struck nine. 
I felt ashamed for having detained my good friend so 
long, and apologized, not only for this but for the al- 
most disrespectful act of calling him to me. He said 
that no apology was needed, that I had given him food 
for thought for many days, and that I must not be sur- 
prised to see a portion of my thoughts reproduced in 
the pulpit, with such modifications as reflection might 
suggest. I helped him on with his overcoat, and he 
left the door in a brown study. 

About three weeks afterwards he called upon me, and 
desired me to remain at home on the approaching Sab- 
bath morning, as he should use so many of my thoughts 
in his discourse that it would embarrass him to have me 
present. I acceded to the request, on the condition that 
he would give me his sermon to peruse after its deliv- 
ery. This he agreed to, and the arrangement was ful- 
filled in all its parts. 

The sacred text upon which he founded his discourse 
was this : " For the children of this world are wiser 
in their generation than the children of light." It was 
an eloquent performance. All my views had been mod- 
ified somewhat, by passing through the medium of a 
more spiritual mind : but they had not been shorn of 
their power. The closing paragraphs impressed me as 
powerful and eloquent, and I trust that their author will 
take no offence at my purloining them and publishing 
them here. 



The Lord's Business. 319 

" I see the Christian enterprise only feebly aggressive, 
pushing on laboriously here and there, and counting its 
gains slowly, while the great worldly enterprises among 
which it floats dash proudly before the wind with sails 
all set, until they ride, staunch and trim, in the harbors 
for which their owners destined them. Think you that 
in a world of business like this any enterprise can suc- 
ceed that is not managed in a business manner ? Why 
should the children of this world be wiser in their gen- 
eration than the children of light ? Why will the latter 
vainly call upon God to work miracles in their behalf, 
while refusing to apply to the Christian enterprise those 
simple, common-sense rules of policy and action, with- 
out which (they well know) their own buisness would 
fall into irretrievable ruin ? What sight more pitiable 
can there be, than a band of mistaken Christians, pray- 
ing Heaven for help in favor of a cause the laws of 
whose progress they utterly ignore or positively trans- 
gress ? 

" Incidentally our discussion has touched something 
deeper than this. Heaven has chosen the weak things 
of this world to confound the things which are mighty ; 
and the business test which we have applied to the 
Christian enterprise, and its managers and manage- 
ment, low and subordinate as it is, has reached down 
into the great Christian heart, and tried its sincerity. 
It has shown plainly, if it has shown anything, that the 
real nature of the claims of Christianity is but feebly 



320 Gold- Foil. 

realized by its professors. It has shown that Christians 
are repudiators of their acknowledged debts, and that 
behind all this business delinquency and dishonor there 
must be a torpor of moral sensibility and a lack of 
moral honesty, sufficient, but for the upholding arm of 
a pitying Heaven, to crush the Christian enterprise into 
the dust. 

" As I look out upon the field of Christian labor I 
see nothing harder to accomplish than what has been 
accomplished already. There is not a difficulty there 
which, in the progress of the enterprise, has not been 
many times surmounted. The entire practicability of 
the Christian enterprise has been demonstrated by the 
work already done. The Christianization of mind is 
not a more difficult process now than it has been in 
the past. If, therefore, the great difficulties in the 
path of the Christian enterprise do not exist in the field 
through which it passes, where do they exist, where 
can they exist, save among those who are carrying it on ? 

" I feel oppressed and humiliated by the secondary 
position which the great enterprise to which I have de- 
voted myself is allowed to occupy among the teeming 
enterprises of the world. I am ashamed that there is 
no more practical sagacity manifested in its manage- 
ment, and that even the readiness and freeness of the 
grace of God are called in question to account for a 
barren adversity of results, for which the Christian 
world is alone responsible. 



The Lords Business. 321 

" Every interest of man calls for the efficient prose- 
cution of this enterprise and its speediest completion. 
The moral and intellectual health and the redemption 
of a race are involved in it. Whatever of blessing 
there may be in wealth, whatever of honor and purity 
there may be in politics, whatever of sweetness there 
may be in family and social relations, whatever of worth 
there may be in manhood and womanhood, whatever 
of dignity and true joy there may be in worldly pur- 
suits, whatever of glory there may be in the wide range 
of human action, depends upon results which this en- 
terprise shall achieve for mankind. It should be broad, 
instinct with action, heaven-reflecting, and world-em- 
bracing like the sea. Upon its billowy bosom the na- 
vies of all lands should ride. The keel of every human 
enterprise should be sunk deep in its waters, and every 
sail should be filled fully and steadily by the benign 
breezes that sweep over its surface. It should only 
break against great continents of Christian life or isl- 
ands of human happiness, kissing their feet in the tidal 
throb of its heaven-born impulse, tempering the fervors 
of Prosperity's summer, meliorating the rigors of Ad- 
versity's winter, and binding the nations in peaceful 
communion through the medium of its flexible and uni- 
versal element. The world cannot live without this 
enterprise. Wherever upon its surface a true civiliza- 
tion has lifted its head above the dead level of bar- 
barism, there you may trace the footsteps of the Chris- 
14* 



322 Gold- Foil. 

tian enterprise. Wherever the divine in man has con- 
quered the brute, there has stood the messenger of 
heavenly truth. 

" What is true in the past will prove true in the 
future. Thus, then, the world's destiny and the world's 
hope are in the Christian enterprise. And how is that 
enterprise managed ? What progress is it making ? In 
this view, how pitiful and contemptible, nay, how sinful 
and damnable, become the strifes of words, the wars of 
sects, the dumb formalities, the droning imbecilities, 
the treasure-sacrificing ostentations, and the niggardly 
meannesses of the great mass of those who have in 
charge this heavenly enterprise ! May the day soon 
dawn, when the great object of Christian labor — the con- 
version of the world — shall reconcile all differences, unite 
all hearts and hands, and lead on victoriously to the 
consummation of a scheme which had its birth in the 
bosom of God's great benevolence, and shall find its 
issue in universal joy ! " 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE GREAT MYSTERY. 

11 Consider well and oft why thou earnest into the world, and how soon 
thou must go out of it." 

" Careless men let their end steal upon them unawares and unprovided." 
" Our birth made us mortal ; our death will make us immortal." 
" He that fears not the future may enjoy the present." 

WHY was I — why were you — called forth from noth- 
ingness into a world of danger and pain, and sin 
and death ? That is a question that has blistered the 
lips of a million wretches, and we who are happier, 
though still the subjects of evil, may well ask it, and 
consider it. 

The earth has been the subject of two grand experi- 
ments, and in the results of these we are to find the 
answer, if anywhere. Six thousand years ago two per- 
sons — a man and a woman — were born into the world, 
and awoke to the consciousness of existence. They were 
pure and good, and so pure and so good that they were 
open to free intercourse with God and with spiritual in- 



324 Gold-Foil. 

telligences. Their tent was the blue sky, the floor of 
their dwelling was carpeted with Eden's grass and 
flowers, and fruits, heaven-provided, hung on every 
hand. They knew no danger, they felt no pain, they 
were free from guilt, and had no fear of death. They 
were adapted to drink in happiness from the things 
around them, and the things around them were adapted 
to supply their desires. A pair of perfect bodies, a pair 
of pure spirits, they found themselves in what seemed 
to be, and was to them, a perfect world. They were 
made in the image of God, and were therefore free. 
This freedom was essential to their perfection, their dig- 
nity, and that development to which their Maker looked 
as the crowning excellence and glory of those whom He 
would call his children. 

But there could be no such thing as right without its 
opposite — wrong; and no good without its opposite — 
evil. They were free, and could obey the laws placed 
upon them, and thus perpetuate their happy estate, or 
they could do wrong, and blast it. They yielded to the 
first temptation to do wrong, and found themselves and 
the world transformed. This first experiment contem- 
plated the development of humanity into its highest 
form and noblest quality without the ministry of evil. 
It was a failure, and God, who instituted the experiment 
that we might answer the great question we are consid- 
ering, knew it would be. It was brief, terrible, and de- 
cisive. The parents and representatives of the race 



The Great Mystery. 325 

were driven out of the garden, and they and all their 
posterity have been subjected to a new experiment — a 
better and a safer one. It was better that Adam and 
Eve should fail then and there, than a thousand years 
afterward. The experiment was tried under the most 
favorable circumstances, and did not succeed. That 
was enough for the world. There had been experiments 
before — how many we know not — but we know that there 
were great beings who had failed to keep their first es- 
tate, and had done immeasurable mischief in the spirit- 
ual universe. The Bible tells of these. 

The new experiment — that of which all of us are the 
subjects — contemplates the introduction of the race into 
its highest estate through the vestibule of evil. We are 
to take evil at this end, and not at the other. We are 
to become familiar with sin and its effects, to overpower 
temptation, to become u perfect through suffering." We 
are to win strength by struggle, and to have our love of 
that which is good developed side by side with our ha- 
tred of that which is bad. Our spiritual natures are to 
be knit into firmness by toil, to be hardened into power 
by conflict, to be softened into humility by the experi- 
ence of their weakness, to be rendered tractable by af- 
fliction, and thus fitted for a safe eternity. What do 
you say of this experiment ? Is it not a grand one ? Is 
it not a benevolent one ? Tell me not of the millions 
who fail of this ! I leave them in the hands of that be- 
nevolence that has devised such great things for you and 



326 Gold- Foil. 

for me. That this is the exact motive of the experiment 
now in progress in this world, I have no doubt ; and I 
do not believe, considering the length of time it has been 
persevered in, and the nature of the agencies that have 
been introduced, that it will prove to be a failure. If I 
did, I should lose all faith in God. I believe that the 
world, as it is — considering the nature and duration of 
our existence and the nature of ourselves and the ser- 
vice and society for which we are designed — is the best 
and safest world we could be placed in. There I leave 
it. 

Well, is this existence, which I have entered upon 
by no act of my own, on the whole a blessing ? Do 
you feel it to be so to you, or not ? How would you 
like to be annihilated — to be wiped out as a conscious 
existence, and plunged into the dark nothingness from 
whence you came ? You shrink from the thought, and 
so do I. Why? Because,, and only because, we be- 
lieve, with all healthy souls, that existence is a blessing. 
We love life, here and now, in this world of sickness, 
sorrow, and death. If, then, existence be a blessing, 
little or large, to us, and we were born into a world of 
suffering and of sin for the purpose of fitting us to live 
safely and securely through all the coming ages of our 
existence, certainly it becomes us to take it contentedly, 
to front our destiny boldly and trustfully, and see what 
we can make of it. We are to consider not only why 
we came into existence in such a world as this, but how 



The Great Mystery. 327 

soon we must go out of it, and how brief, at longest, 
the period of this momentous experiment will be. 

If this world be not a place for education of some 
sort, it has little meaning. The idea that a man should 
be placed in the circumstances that surround us, and 
subjected to this great experiment without reference to 
another existence — that he should die as soon as he has 
learned to live — is simply absurd. Admitting, then, 
that we are the subjects of education, how does it be- 
come us to see that the end of its period do not steal 
upon us unawares and unprovided. How does it be- 
come us, as rational men and women, to make the most 
of our life, and to see that in our case, at least, the ex- 
periment be successful. The man who receives life as a 
blessing, to be cherished and loved, and enjoyed and 
preserved, is a coward if he be afraid to consider its 
intention and its end, and a guilty spendthrift if he let 
it pass by, month after month and year after year, with- 
out securing the education it was meant to convey. 

This wise providence of time and opportunity be- 
comes the more desirable when it is remembered that 
it is only when we are fearless of the future that we 
may enjoy the present. The lamb doomed to slaughter 
on the morrow, gambols and rejoices in freedom to-day, 
because it is fearless of the future. The bird sings, the 
insect hums with the joy that is in it, the kitten frisks 
upon the carpet, not because they are not subjects of 
pain and death, but because, knowing nothing of them, 



328 Go Id- Foil. 

they have no fear of them. A fearlessness of the fu- 
ture identical with this cannot be ours, and the fact is 
proof of our higher destiny ; but a fearlessness of the 
future, which will render our life far happier than theirs, 
may be acquired, by preparation to meet the future. 
Life is only an inestimable blessing to him who, pre- 
pared to meet the future, and who, comprehending his 
position and the meaning of it, is not afraid of the 
future. 

The shadowy future — ah ! how many shudder when 
they think of it t How many shrink from even the 
thought of it ! How it poisons every present delight, 
and embitters every pleasure, and haunts every hour of 
hollow mirth ! I declare this to be utterly unnecessary 
— even inexcusable. We are content to live here in this 
world of sorrow and pain, and shrink from a world in 
which it shall be done away with, if we are only manly 
enough to get ready for it ! Accepting our life as an ex- 
periment — a period of education — entering into the 
plan by which we are to be fitted for everlasting happi- 
ness and safety, and subjecting ourselves to the neces- 
sary discipline — we lift the great shadow from us ; the 
phantom of the future retires, and, calm in our trust, 
we live in the present a life of enjoyment. No man can 
enjoy life in its full, blessed measure, until this torment- 
ing fear be cast out ; and it can never be cast out by a 
rational man until the future looks safe to him. The 
moment the future is taken care of, present trials seem 



The Great Mystery. 329 

small, and present joys are lifted to our lips, their 
divine aroma unalloyed. 

The tendency of religious instruction and of philo- 
sophical speculation has been to mystify us all upon 
this problem of evil in the world. Our preachers have 
talked solemnly upon the subject of " reconciling" the 
existence of evil with the infinite love and goodness of 
God, as if the belief in this goodness and the recogni- 
tion of this evil in the ordained system of things, were 
to be regarded separately, with an unbridged gulf of 
darkness between them. Threading that darkness, 
fathoms below sight, there is supposed to be a chain of 
golden links, holding one to the other, to be appre- 
hended only by an irrational faith. Such teaching and 
such speculation are full of miserable infidelity. I, for 
one, believe in the infinite love and goodness of God. 
I plant myself on them, and I believe that I could not 
be shaken from my foothold without the wish that I 
might plunge into annihilation. On this firm rock I 
take my stand, and, without seeking to reconcile the 
evil which enters into my experience and comes within 
my observation with God's love and goodness, I seek 
rationally to account for the evil as an appointed means 
of the infinite love and goodness. I know God is good, 
or He is no God; and I believe, as a natural conse- 
quence, that I am to be raised into* sympathy with the 
specific quality of His goodness by rational knowledge 
of, and experimental acquaintance with, evil. I call 



330 Gold- Foil. 

that infidelity, and not faith, which makes of the exist- 
ence of evil a blind mystery, to be mournfully accepted, 
and sacredly kept from the hand and eye of reason. It 
makes no difference what events and what destinies 
hinge upon the existence of evil here ; it matters nothing 
what sufferings, what woes, what sorrows assail us ; the 
moment we swing loose, by the smallest remove, from 
perfect trust in the infinite love and goodness, and a be- 
lief in the benign ministry of evil as a department of 
their means, we lose our hold upon the meaning of our 
life. 

Believing in God's goodness and His infinite and ever- 
lasting love, I believe in evil, as a part of the divinely 
appointed means by which my soul is to be educated 
and disciplined for its highest possible destiny — as a 
means rendered necessary by my nature and by my des- 
tiny. I believe that if now, in my sours infancy, I 
make my acquaintance with evil, and grow up through 
it into my soul's manhood — learning its relations to di- 
vine law and to my own personal, god-like freedom — 
that I shall be safe through the infinite ages that stretch 
before me. I shall not be like the angels who lost their 
first estate, and plunged, full-fledged, from heights of 
heavenly power into an infamous perdition. God might 
as well have given me my infancy in heaven as here, if 
evil had no ministry of good for me. I might as well 
have been ushered at once into the spiritual life, as to 
have been the tenant of a death-doomed body, if there 



The Great Mystery. 331 

had been nothing to be gained by probationary subjec- 
tion to the power of evil. 

So I take my life as I find it, as a life full of grand ad- 
vantages that are linked indissolubly to my noblest hap- 
piness and my everlasting safety. I believe that infinite 
love ordained it, and that, if I bow willingly, tractably, 
and gladly to its discipline, my Father will take care of 
it. I say nothing here of the Christian scheme, because 
I choose to discuss this single question by itself. 

Now, what I wish to say, is this : that a man who de- 
cides that God is infinitely good, that he was born into 
a world of evil because it was on the whole best for him 
to be born into such a world, that evil has a ministry for 
him essential in the nature of things to his highest des- 
tiny and his completest safety, and, with faith and con- 
fidence, accepts his lot and makes the most of it, has 
nothing to fear in the future, and nothing to hinder his 
enjoyment of the present. From such a man the incu- 
bus of a dark future is lifted. The future may be unde- 
fined and, perhaps, in some sense, awful, but it will not 
be terrible ; for infinite love will take care of it. The 
terror inspired by things to come thus taken out of the 
way, the ban on present happiness is removed, and soul 
and sense may drink in unreproved, whatever good that 
crowds to them for acceptance. 

If we, finite creatures, encumbered with flesh, and 
harassed by its appetites and gross proclivities, con- 
quer the temptations that assail us, and find ourselves 



332 Gold- Foil. 

growing stronger and better as we grow older ; if, in 
this world of evil, and in a measure through its minis- 
try, we become elevated and ennobled, how safe and 
glorious must that future be which shall find us free 
from the appetites that chafe us, and released from all 
pain and sorrow ! Now, is it not worth something to 
make that future so secure that we can approach it 
with fearlessness ? Ah yes ! The life which is, no less 
than the life which is to come, is ours, if we will take it. 
With this lion in our way removed, how sweetly will 
taste the pleasures of life ! How precious will become 
the loves that our hearts drink so greedily, and often so 
fearfully, when we know that we may drink them for- 
ever! How charming will become the songs of birds, 
and how fragrant the perfume of flowers, to him who 
believes that he will only lose them to listen to angelic 
music, and breathe the breath of flowers that never 
decay ! 

Much of the mystery that hangs over the world, as a 
world of evil, grows out of a misconception of the high- 
est life. If the highest good of the short years that are 
allotted to us on the earth be happiness, then is the ex- 
istence of evil indeed a mystery ; but it is not, and can- 
not be. Happiness is a legitimate object of life, and I 
am even now endeavoring to show how more of it may 
be secured ; but it is an object to be held subordinate 
to the education necessary for service in another realm, 
and the permanent enjoyment of another estate. I be- 



The Great Mystery. 333 

lieve that the truest happiness of the world is to be 
found in heartily accepting and entering into the scheme 
by which evil is made a powerful agency in the devel- 
opment and eternal security of the soul. Accepting 
this ministry, and trusting in the goodness — profound 
and eternal— in which it was conceived, what a flood of 
light and love is let in upon the soul ! No ! there is 
something better for us in this world than happiness, 
whatever there may be beyond. We will take happi- 
ness as the incident of this, gladly and gratefully. We 
will add a thousand-fold to the happiness of the present 
in the fearlessness of the future which it brings, but we 
will not place happiness first, and thus cloud our heads 
with doubt and fill our hearts with discontent. In the 
blackest soils grow the richest flowers, and the loftiest 
and strongest trees spring heavenward among the focks. 



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